Gridpane vs RunCloud: Which is the best hosting control panel?
Gridpane vs RunCloud. Which is the best WordPress control panel? If this is what you are looking for, we have some good news for you. Over the past 3 weeks, we had been testing both Gridpane and RunCloud extensively to answer all the dying questions about both of these awesome hosting control panels.
In the next few moments, we are going to dive deep into both Gridpane and RunCloud, and we certainly hope you will be able to find some true answers here!
One of the biggest misconception about hosting control panels is hosting control panels offer hosting services. A hosting control panel is a tool that allows you to manage all aspects of a hosting service. It allows you to do most of the complex system management in hosting as well as simple ones such as creating email accounts, adding domains and checking the bandwidth usage.
cPanel and Plesk are two great examples for general hosting control panels and while these are great tools, you might find them rather limitating especially when you would require more control.
Introducing, Gridpane vs RunCloud Review
~Gridpane vs RunCloud comparison review
When it comes to custom WordPress hosting control panel, both Gridpane and RunCloud are household names for website owners, WordPress agencies and freelancers alike.
RunCloud is a PHP Cloud Server Management Panel that integrates perfectly well with various frameworks including WordPress, Laravel, Joomla and Yii Framework.
~What is RunCloud?
Apart from that, it is also important to note that RunCloud is a Malaysian based company that had made to the limelight.
Gridpane is a WordPress control panel and when they launched, they were the first of its kind. The advanced hosting control panel makes deploying, optimizing and hardening any WordPress site a breeze.
~What is Gridpane?
If you are looking for a dedicated hosting control panel for WordPress CMS, Gridpane is a solid choice that you can't go wrong with.
On the surface, Gridpane is not really made for website owners. It is a hosting control panel that you can use to manage hundreds if not thousands of WordPress sites under one roof and instead of paying through your nose through 3rd party WordPress hosting solutions.
What are the advantages using Gridpane?
Fully tuned NGINX with FastCGI
Premium plugins and themes
Latest versions for PHP, MySQL and Redis
Staging and SSL capabilities
Advanced security and server hardening features
Unlimited server management
Built-in Slack notifications
Secure SSH keyed access by default
Robust Linux, NGINX, MySQL, PHP (LEMP) stack
Remote third-party backups
Dedicated live chat support and well-equipped knowledge base
Let's take a look at Gridpane's backend system.
What are the disadvantages using Gridpane?
Let's be honest here. There is no such thing as a perfect product and Gridpane has its weakness too. Based on our team's experience, the biggest disadvantage of using Gridpane is the customer support.
Now, make no mistake. We are decently happy with their customer support level but there are things they could certainly do better.
For example, some customer support teams are very fast in pointing you to the articles in the knowledge base. Sure, these articles could be well-written but at times, having human touches such as helping out instantly goes a long way in making one's day and even building a strong satisfaction level. This is a known challenges that Gridpane faces and you can also see more users are more keen to post for help on their Facebook Group (for community support) instead of going through the support live chat.
Aside from that, Gridpane pricing is also rather steep, especially for their range. This is because while the entry level (Pro plan) is nicely capped at $30 per month, the developer plan is $100 per month which is a huge jump for many. You would most likely benefit much from the developer plan because it is comes with additional features including server security which is crucial.
RunCloud review
We were rather hardcore Gridpane fans until we use RunCloud ourselves. To be honest, we know that there are many features of RunCloud but RunCloud can be rather complicated for beginners. For starters, RunCloud is great when you can write command codes. If you can't, the support team is there to assist (minus the communication time in between).
On the surface, RunCloud is very geared towards usability (the backend dashboard is beautifully crafted and the UI/UX is very pleasing). Under the hood, RunCloud offers one of the largest and most complex hosting control panel known to mankind.
What are the advantages using RunCloud?
Ability to manage web servers under one roof
Using confusing command lines is not required
Multiple stacks setup including LEMP and LAMP
Easily white label and customize for clients
Very supportive customer support team
Time saving applications and integrations
Notification via Slack, Telegram or email
Powerful server hardening features
Easy to use backend system
Complex and complete settings for nearly every hosting needs
Affordable pricing structures
Let's take a look at RunCloud backend system.
What are the disadvantages using RunCloud?
We are not going to lie to you. We feel in love (again) right after using RunCloud. But this RunCloud review is all about honesty and real comparison, so here goes.
For starters, RunCloud can be fairly complicated especially for beginners. Their dashboard is well-arranged with beautiful UI/UX. However, there are many options and can be rather challenging especially for first-time users.
Apart from the complex settings, it is important to understand that RunCloud is not a completely dedicated hosting control panel for WordPress. In other words, the development for RunCloud may not be entirely focused on WordPress.
Gridpane vs RunCloud: Comparing two awesome tools
There is no denial that both Gridpane and RunCloud are great hosting control panel tools. If you need some powerful comparisons, we hope you find this information useful.
Gridpane
RunCloud
Hosting control panel dedicated for WordPress
Hosting control panel not dedicated for WordPress
Bundles feature helps to speed up WordPress installation
WordPress Canvas helps to speed up WordPress installation
Limited number of team members for developer plans and above (10 slots per Developer plan), and additional charges apply
Unlimited number of team members at no extra cost
Single VPS provider API per account
Multiple VPS provider APIs per account
Developer plan starts at $100 per month with white labeling starts from $1,000 per month.
Highest tier starts at $37.5 per month and custom tier is available (by contacting support)
Priority support via live chat and non essential support via email
Support via emails only
Gridpane offers 14 days free trial
RunCloud offers 5 days free trial
No yearly plan discounts for Gridpane
RunCloud offers annual discounts
Gridpane vs RunCloud: Which is a faster WordPress hosting control panel?
Last but not least, speed is something that we are fairly sensitive about.
So, is Gridpane faster than RunCloud?
The answer is "They are both on par." Take a look at the speed tests we did to compare both Gridpane and RunCloud.
~Speedtest using Gridpane
~Speedtest using RunCloud
On the left, it is Gridpane's score while the right is RunCloud's. Gridpane scored 473 ms and RunCloud scored 615 ms, both with full Redis cache turned on.
If you want to count on math, Gridpane loads around 30% faster (142 ms). We decided not to conclude that Gridpane is faster than RunCloud based on numbers since both of them are loading well below the 1 second mark.
Summary: Which is the best hosting control panel for WordPress?
Both Gridpane and RunCloud are excellent choices and you can't go wrong with either one of them. If we have to choose, we decided that RunCloud is the best option for us simply because they have better customer support, easier pricing structures and offers tons of different application frameworks that we could use at the same time.
The Best Hosting Control Panel ...
RunCloud.io
There is no doubt that Gridpane is easier to use (beginner friendly) but RunCloud offers power, performance, customer support and excellent pricing that beats Gridpane anytime of the day.
The definition of a hosting control panel is "A tool that allows you to manage all aspects of a hosting service. It allows you to do most of the complex system admin processes in just a few clicks from the admin interface. You can even do advanced tasks such as server migrations, web server switching etc. in just a few clicks."
A WordPress hosting control panel allows you to do exactly the above, but only for WordPress CMS. Here's the thing: WordPress hosting control panels are not usually popular among normal website owners.
Why?
This is because by default, WordPress hosting control panel software are generally expensive and require some level of expertise. In the hands of a professional, WordPress hosting control panel could be an excellent choice for blazing-fast websites and highly secured websites.
What are the features of a WordPress hosting control panel?
~What makes a WordPress hosting control panel powerful?
No two hosting control panels are similar and here are the general features that you can expect:
Provision of virtual private servers (VPS)
Free Let's Encrypt SSL's
Site cloning/migrations
One click staging sites
6G & ModSec 3 + WAF
Backups and rollbacks
Top WordPress hosting control panels this year
So, which are the best WordPress hosting control panel services that you should consider using?
We work with quite a few WordPress hosting control panels and here are our top favorites:
GridPane calls themselves the world's first WordPress hosting control panel. In simpler terms, GridPane allows serious WordPress professionals to provision their own servers with all the features of managed WordPress hosting at a fraction of the cost.
When it comes to dedicated WordPress support, Gridpane is very decent and offers one of the best WordPress hosting control panel services in the market. With three different pricing structure, Gridpane is an excellent choice for freelance WordPress developers and WordPress agencies managing both small and large scale projects.
Runcloud is a PHP cloud server control panel that support Digital Ocean, Linode, AWS, Vultr, Azure and other custom VPS. The availability of Git deployment webhook and easy control panel makes it one of the most preferred hosting control panels for WordPress users.
It is important to note that Runcloud offers more than hosting control panel for WordPress but to a wide range of other CMS and PHP.
Last but not least, Cloudways is a popular hosting control panel that is often used by bloggers and website owners who want to have hassle-free server management. Cloudways integrates with a wide range of VPS and with its affordable pricing, you can't go wrong with Cloudways.
Our Recommended WordPress Hosting Control Panel Solution
At WP Maven, we work with WordPress a lot and we can't help but focus on hosting control panel solutions that have a strong focus in WordPress. That's also the reason why we use Gridpane to manage VPS for our client's behalf.
If you are looking for a cheaper hosting control panel solution, Cloudways is an excellent choice too.
Bluehost Review 2020: A Web Hosting Comparison Like No Other
Bluehost is the most popular web hosting service and just like any other web hosting companies, it has a fair share of positive and negative reviews. As a matter of fact, you probably come across more less-appealing Bluehost review blog posts on the first page of Google! At WP Maven, we use do have clients who use Bluehost as their hosting provider and we do have more than a dozen encounters with Bluehost on a very personal end.
We want to make this Bluehost review different from most of the ones that you can find on the Internet—through in-depth review, features, the good and the bad of what Bluehost offers.
Without further delay, let's dive deep into our own hosting review, Bluehost.
Bluehost is a web hosting company owned by Endurance International Group (also known as EIG). It is one of the 20 largest web hosts, collectively hosting well over 2 million domains. The company operates its servers in-house in a 50,000 square feet facility in Provo, Utah. According to Wikipedia, Bluehost employs over 750 people in its Utah facility.
Bluehost is a popular website hosting provider that offers both affordable web hosting service (for small websites) and enterprise-level hosting frameworks for large/heavy traffic websites.
Part 2: What type of web hosting does Bluehost offer?
Bluehost offers a wide range of hosting services including:
Apart from that, Bluehost also offers related services such as:
Email hosting
Domain name registration
Live WordPress support
Custom website design and digital marketing services
Part 3: What features that Bluehost web hosting offers?
As this Bluehost review is mainly on the review on Bluehost hosting solution, we will be putting more emphasis on web hosting, as compared to other services.
When it comes to Bluehost hosting features, the features vary based on the hosting plan that you are currently subscribed to. For example, eCommerce hosting features may vary as compared to WordPress hosting.
Nonetheless, here's the breakdown for each Bluehost web hosting services.
How's the experience with this blue hosting service?
With Bluehost, you never have to worry about your website being slow even when there is a lot of traffic. Their 24/7 expert support is always there to help when you need it by phone, email, or live chat. They are rated #1 in web hosting for small businesses.
Shared hosting is a common Bluehost hosting solution. It is easy to use, useable for all major CMS, easy to setup, email hosting services and support that you need.
There are 4 common plans when it comes to Bluehost shared hosting. Let's take a look below.
(a) Shared Hosting Basic
1 website
50 GB SSD Storage
Unmetered Bandwidth
Free SSL Certificate
Standard Performance
1 Included Domain
5 Parked Domains
25 Subdomains
Summary: If you are just starting a blog, the Bluehost Basic web hosting plan is an excellent choice to start with. This shared hosting solution starts at $3.95 per month and is the lowest entry-level shared hosting plan.
(b) Shared Hosting Plus
Unlimited Websites
Unlimited SSD Storage
Unmetered Bandwidth
Complimentary SSL Certificate
Standard Performance
Unlimited Domains
Unlimited Parked Domains
Unlimited Subdomains
Spam Experts
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days
Summary: The Plus plan is best when you are hosting more than one website (Bluehost Plus shared hosting plan offers unlimited website hosting). With pricing starts at $5.95 per month, it comes with Spam Experts (for email delivery), free domain name and Microsoft 365 Mailbox (trial) too.
(c) Shared Hosting Choice Plus
Unlimited Websites
Unlimited SSD Storage
Unmetered Bandwidth
Complimentary SSL Certificate
Standard Performance
Unlimited Domains
Unlimited Parked Domains
Unlimited Subdomains
Spam Experts
Domain Privacy + Protection
Site Backup - CodeGuard Basic
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days
Summary: Bluehost Choice Plus is the next available tier when it comes to affordable shared hosting services. Apart from all the features in the Plus plan, this shared hosting plan comes with domain privacy and automatic site backup. For only $1 extra from the Plus plan ($6.95 per month), both of these additional features are extremely important when it comes to website security and server daily backups.
(d) Shared Hosting Pro
Unlimited Websites
Unlimited SSD Storage
Unmetered Bandwidth
Complimentary SSL Certificate
High Performance
Unlimited Domains
Unlimited Parked Domains
Unlimited Subdomains
2 Spam Experts
Domain Privacy + Protection
Site Backup - CodeGuard Basic
Dedicated IP
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days
Summary: Last but not least, Bluehost Pro plan is best for website owners who are seriously in having powerful web hosting servers (for faster loading speed, more cron jobs, etc.). Websites hosted on the Pro plan will enjoy 300,000 file count and are deployed with fewer users per server than the standard shared servers, allowing for greater compute resource availability per user. Another plus point of the Pro plan is the dedicated IP and therefore, you can rest assured that you are not getting bad hosting neighbours who might abuse the IP usage (indirectly affecting your domain score).
(ii) Bluehost WordPress Hosting Plans
~Bluehost WordPress Hosting Plan
Bluehost shared WordPress hosting helps you to set up your WordPress site fast, easy and securing the website in minutes, not hours (and without any technical help).
The hosting plans below are dedicated to the WordPress CMS only and unlike the normal shared hosting plans, Bluehost shared hosting plans for WordPress comes with:
Automatic WordPress Installation. Upon creation of your WordPress Hosting plan, Bluehost automatically installs the latest and most secure version of WordPress.
Automatic WordPress Updates. We keep your WordPress Hosting plan secure even after account creation by keeping your account up to date every day.
Secure Configuration of Login Credentials. Upon the creation of your WordPress Hosting account, your login credentials are changed from the standard WordPress admin/password to something of your choice.
Get Verified on Google My Business. List your local business online to quickly connect with customers in your area. Allow them to see your location and your hours of operation on Google Maps.
Hundreds of Free And Premium WordPress Themes. Free and premium themes are available from the moment you create your account. Find the WordPress theme that best represents you and your unique talents. Installation is fast and easy, and switching themes can be completed in seconds.
Dedicated for WordPress. Designed with you in mind, Bluehost provides everything you need to create and manage a WordPress website. Enjoy powerful website management tools, automatic WordPress installation, and 24/7 expert support all at a price that fits any budget.
Bluehost shared WordPress hosting solutions are available in three different plans.
(a) WordPress Hosting Basic
1 Website
Free SSL Certificate
50 GB SSD Storage
Free Domain for 1 Year
5 Parked Domains
25 Subdomains
$200 Marketing Credit
Summary: If you are looking for an entry-level web host that offers dedicated WordPress support, the Basic plan is the best for you. 50 GB SSD storage is very generous, especially for a single website. The free SSL certificate and unmetered bandwidth make hosting WordPress on Bluehost a worry-free thing for you.
(b) WordPress Hosting Plus
Unlimited Websites
Complimentary SSL Certificate
Unmetered SSD Storage
Free Domain for 1 Year
Unlimited Parked Domains
Unlimited Subdomains
$200 Marketing Credit
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days
Summary: The Plus plan is good if you’re looking for unlimited websites, customer support, SSL certificate, email accounts and WordPress hosting all under one roof. Plus, having $200 marketing credits and 30 days of Microsoft 365 mailbox are also great features/perks.
(c) WordPress Hosting Choice Plus
Unlimited Websites
Complimentary SSL Certificate
Unmetered SSD Storage
Free Domain for 1 Year
Unlimited Parked Domains
Unlimited Subdomains
$200 Marketing Credit
CodeGuard Basic Backup
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days
Summary: If you are looking for unlimited everything, Bluehost Choice Plus plan offers great features and services, including massive storage space, powerful server and daily backups.
(iii) Bluehost Managed WordPress Hosting
~Bluehost Managed WordPress Plans
WP Pro by Bluehost allows you to quickly build and grow the perfect WordPress website with some serious firepower (features) including:
All-in-on marketing centre and dashboard
SEO, email marketing and social media tools included
Optimized performance for blazing site speeds
Unlimited everything (websites, domains, subdomains, web storage and traffic limits)
Staging environment
~Introduction to WP Pro by Bluehost
WP Pro is different from typical Bluehost shared hosting because this is a dedicated WordPress hosting solution. Everything you need to create an engaging WordPress website is available in this plan—making them an easy to use solution for busy website owners.
WP Pro comes in three distinctive plans which are:
Build
Grow
Scale
(a) WP Pro Build
All the basics you need for starting a professional WordPress website
Summary: We recently helped a client to migrate over to the WP Pro Build plan and to be honest, we were very amazed at how intuitive the dashboard was and the website loading speed. If you are looking for a managed WordPress hosting plan with great features, this is the plan for you. WP Pro Build plan starts at $19.95 per month.
(b) WP Pro Grow
Everything you need to build an audience for your WordPress website
Jetpack Premium included
Business Review Tools
Bluehost SEO Tools
Jetpack Ads Integration
10GB Video Compression
Marketing Center
100+ Free WordPress Themes
Daily Scheduled Backups
Malware Detection and Removal
Domain Privacy + Protection
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days
Blue Sky Ticket Support
Summary: Bluehost WP Pro Grow plan is where the true power for managed WordPress hosting. The availability of enterprise-grade website tools help you build better WordPress sites without spending additional money for plugins and without any coding skills. Plus, you will have access to Blue Sky ticket support at no additional cost. In other words, get all the assistance you need with design, functionality or general questions from real WordPress experts 24/7. WP Pro Grow plan starts at $29.95 per month.
Advanced features for running an eCommerce WordPress website
Jetpack Premium included
Business Review Tools
Bluehost SEO Tools
Jetpack Ads Integration
10GB Video Compression
Blue Sky Ticket Support
Marketing Center
100+ Free WordPress Themes
Daily Scheduled Backups
Malware Detection and Removal
Domain Privacy + Protection
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days
Summary: Bluehost WP Pro Scale plan is an excellent choice for hosting your eCommerce stores and heavy traffic WordPress sites. With PayPal integration and Elastic Search, we find that Bluehost offers powerful, easy to use and highly affordable to the wallet. Most shared hosting plans do not offer additional higher tier support but with WP Pro Scale plan, you get everything under one roof. WP Pro Scale plan starts at $49.95 per month.
(iv) Bluehost WooCommerce Hosting
~Bluehost WooCommerce Hosting Plans
Just like many other hosting companies, Bluehost offers dedicated hosting environment for WooCommerce stores including secure payment gateways, fully customizable online stores and easy to use (hassle-free) set up processes.
Other perks and advantages of using Bluehost WooCommerce hosting are:
Summary: If you are looking for an easy to use WooCommerce hosting, you can't go wrong with Bluehost. This plan is excellent for beginners and with the pricing of $6.95 per month, you are definitely not going to break the bank anytime soon!
(b) WooCommerce Hosting Plus
Unlimited Online Stores
Unmetered SSD Storage
Storefront Theme Installed
Free SSL
Free Setup Call
CodeGuard Backup Basic
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days
Domain Privacy + Protection
Summary: This shared hosting plan comes with automatic backups which are important for your website (instead of manual backup). This plan starts at $8.95 per month, which is really affordable.
(c) WooCommerce Hosting Pro
Unlimited Online Stores
Unmetered SSD Storage
Storefront Theme Installed
Free Setup Call
CodeGuard Backup Basic
Free SSL
Domain Privacy + Protection
Bluehost SEO Tools Start
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days
Summary: This hosting plan is the most high powered option if you are looking to build and manage an online store (or several online stores) like a professional. With unlimited everything and premium SEO tools, you are well on your way to creating online stores that both Google and website visitors would love!
(v) Bluehost VPS Hosting
~Bluehost VPS Hosting Plans
Next in this Bluehost review is their VPS hosting. Bluehost virtual private servers are built using SSD storage which increases the power, flexibility and control for your websites.
Here are some interesting features of Bluehost VPS hosting:
Free domain name for the 1st year
30 day money back guarantee, no matter what reason
24/7 stellar support
Advanced multi-server management solutions
Access control for better security
Domain Privacy + Protection
File management
Additional resources in just a few clicks
Availability of SiteLock (defend your websites against attacks and malware by detecting and fixing vulnerabilities and threats before they cause problems)
Bluehost VPS hosting comes in three plans as below.
(a) VPS Hosting Standard
2 Cores
30 GB SSD Storage
2 GB RAM
1 TB Bandwidth
1 IP Address
Summary: For only $19.99 per month, you can have a fully managed VPS server that offers you significantly powerful hosting services as compared to typically shared hosting plans. This is indeed an awesome entry-level VPS solution at a very cheap rate.
(b) VPS Hosting Enhanced
2 Cores
60 GB SSD Storage
4 GB RAM
2 TB Bandwidth
2 IP Addresses
Summary: This VPS plan starts at $29.99 per month and this is by far a very powerful hosting plan that gives you power, performance and all the flexibility you need to create a business online.
(c) VPS Hosting Ultimate
4 Cores
120 GB SSD Storage
8 GB RAM
3 TB Bandwidth
2 IP Addresses
Summary: If you are searching for a powerful VPS hosting service, Bluehost Ultimate plan is the best for both money (cost) and performance. The 4 cores and 8 GB RAM give you ample of server performance that would power your busy website even when you are trending on the front page of Reddit.
(vi) Bluehost Dedicated Hosting
~Bluehost Dedicated Hosting Plans
High-performance hosting, enterprise-level hosting or custom hosting framework. Welcome to the true power of Bluehost dedicated hosting solutions. Regardless you are looking for performance, security, absolutely control or all of them, Bluehost dedicated hosting solutions can create custom approaches for you to have the hosting service of your choice.
Apart from having servers that are tuned for optimum performance and dedicated solutions powered by an industry-leading, robust platform, here are some features that you will get only with Bluehost dedicated hosting plans:
Free domain name for 1st year
Free SSL certificate
30 day money back guarantee
Unmanaged dedicated server hosting
Improved cPanel
Multi-server management
Domain Privacy + Protection
SiteLock
Spam Protection
Dedicated customer service support on standby 24/7
Introduction
What are dedicated hosting benefits?
Control, privacy, and guaranteed resources are the primary benefits of both VPS hosting and Dedicated hosting. However dedicated servers are not shared with any other users, so the performance of a Dedicated server customer's website is stable and predictable. Customers with high traffic websites are often the best fit for Dedicated hosting.
Comparison
What is the difference between VPS vs Dedicated hosting?
Users of VPS hosting have allocated resources just like Dedicated hosting users, however, the number of available resources on VPS servers may still not be what a website needs. For example, VPS servers often start at 2GB of RAM, whereas Dedicated servers often start with at least 4GB of RAM available. In short, Dedicated hosting allows for the same full customization and control of a VPS server, but with even more horsepower.
Bluehost dedicated hosting plans come in three different plans to suit your needs.
(a) Dedicated Hosting Standard
4 cores @ 2.3 GHz
500GB (Mirrored) Storage
4 GB RAM
5 TB Bandwidth
3 IP Addresses
Summary: With pricing starts at $79.99 per month, Bluehost offers a rather standard pricing structure with superior performance.
(b) Dedicated Hosting Enhanced
4 cores @ 2.5 GHz
1TB (Mirrored) Storage
8 GB RAM
10 TB Bandwidth
4 IP Addresses
Summary: This dedicated hosting plan offers a lot of firepower with 4 cores and 8 GB RAM. At only $99.99 per month, this is one of the most popular dedicated hosting plans on Bluehost.
(c) Dedicated Hosting Premium
4 cores @ 3.3 GHz
1TB (Mirrored) Storage
16 GB RAM
15 TB Bandwidth
5 IP Addresses
Summary: Finally, the mother of all dedicated hosting solutions is the Premium plan. At $119.99 per month, this dedicated hosting offers a very powerful dedicated hosting environment for the heaviest-traffic websites.
Part 4: Is Bluehost a good web host?
Now, with that being said, let's dive deep into the review with understanding if Bluehost is a good web host. The term "good" varies a lot depending on the individual. For us, a good web host means that they are a reliable web hosting company, comes with good customer support with live chat and other web hosting perks such as unlimited email accounts, free SSL certificate, free domain name and 30 day money back guarantee.
Does Bluehost offers any of the above?
The answer is "Yes!"
Each hosting package that you sign up with Bluehost comes with all of the above and higher plans also comes with domain privacy and unmetered bandwidth.
Bluehost scores highly in the ease of use category and excellent web hosting service with multiple web hosting plans to fit your needs—from shares hosting to hosting WordPress websites.
Part 5: Is Bluehost good for beginners?
How about beginners? Is Bluehost an excellent catch for beginners?
The answer is "Yes".
Most of the entry-level packages such as the basic shared hosting package come with all the tools beginners would need to start a website quickly.
The key points that make Bluehost stand out from the crowd are the live chat service and customer support, unmetered bandwidth and unlimited email address. These are very important features that a web host can offer in terms of support and service for beginners.
Apart from the above, Bluehost is a hosting provider that offers cheap web hosting service with domain privacy addons if you get on higher hosting plan. The basic plan that Bluehost offers is sufficient for small blogs and websites.
Last not least, you can easily use Bluehost without having to worry if Bluehost is not right for you (down the road). This is because all Bluehost shared hosting plans come with money back guarantee—which is really, really good in the case where you find Bluehost hosting is not something you are looking at.
Part 6: How much does it cost to host a website on Bluehost?
In this Bluehost review, we had come into a conclusion that Bluehost comes with different plans to fit different type of website requirements and budget. The lowest plan is the basic shared hosting plan starts at $3.95 per month for both basic shared hosting (all CMS) including WordPress.
If you are looking for fully managed WordPress hosting or much higher specs such as VPS or dedicated hosting, plan starts at $19.99 per month onwards.
Part 7: Why is Bluehost so cheap?
Bluehost is a hosting provider that provides many hosting features for both WordPress site and non-WordPress CMS. They are able to sell hosting at low prices because they oversell their web hosting space.
What is overselling a web hosting server?
Overselling is when a hosting company sells more disk space and bandwidth on a server than actually exists. For example, a server hard drive is 80GB and has 1200GB of bandwidth. The hosting company has a look around and decides to offer plans with 2GB of disk space and 40GB bandwidth.
Is overselling a bad thing in web hosting?
Well, this is a tough question. For starters, we know a handful of web hosting providers that oversell web hosting but they manage the entire business strategy very well. This means that they keep track of the server performance to ensure that all websites hosted on the server are getting enough resources.
But yes, there are also web hosting providers who care more on profit than customer service or support. This is a bad thing and could lead to your website loading slower or taking a longer time to process a specific task.
Based on our personal experience with Bluehost, Bluehost does a decent job in overselling their web servers (hey, the hosting industry is a tough industry) and at times, they do drop the ball.
If you are hosted on Bluehost and noticed a significant drop in processing power or your website takes a longer time to respond to actions (such as loading speed), feel free to reach out to the support to seek for clarification. If you are able to share your experience with some statistics/facts, their support team would offer you to migrate to the next available server.
Part 8: Is Bluehost the best for WordPress?
~Which Bluehost hosting plan is best for me?
Now, what if you are using WordPress and looking for the best WordPress hosting company? Bluehost, in our personal opinion, is a great hosting company for WordPress CMS.
Money back guarantee, live customer service/support, daily backups and unlimited email address are just some perks that are too good to ignore. Plus, hosting at Bluehost also means that you get ample of storage space, a domain name for free for the first year and complimentary SSL certificate — which are good to save some money!
If you are looking to host your WordPress site on Bluehost, I recommend you to go with WP Pro. Bluehost WP Pro is a fully-managed WP hosting service that offer handles all the challenging parts about hosting a WordPress site. With a customized and optimized WordPress server, your WP site will load faster and more efficiently.
Most WP web hosts charge more than what Bluehost does and make no mistake—more expensive doesn't mean that it is better!
When it comes to WP hosting, Bluehost makes it easy for you to start your own website with many state-of-the-art security features, dedicated control panel, unlimited bandwidth and technical support to build and grow your WP site.
Recap on Bluehost Review 2020
Before we wrap up this Bluehost review 2020, it is important to note that we are an active customer on Bluehost. This is one of those hosting companies that offer very affordable shared hosting, dedicated and VPS hosting plans that you can start with very minimal technical knowledge.
We totally understand that the price of web hosting is very important especially for beginners and small website owners. Bluehost pricing for hosting packages is by far the most affordable ones in the market for both new accounts and renewal rates/renewal price.
While Bluehost has its own pros and cons, we can't help but to constantly recommend Bluehost to those who are serious in getting great support and solid web hosting with a lower price point.
Why you don't you get started with Bluehost today and decide for yourself?
The world's most popular web hosting service at affordable prices
Try Bluehost today and get unparalleled support from true WordPress experts at a fraction of the cost.
How To Save Hosting Bandwidth (And Potentially Save Hundreds Of Dollars Monthly)?
If you are running a heavy traffic WordPress site, one of the occasions that you may always encounter is hitting the hosting bandwidth. While this shows that your website is doing good (in terms of traffic), you may be hit with a higher-than-usual hosting bill. And this is going to burn a hole in your pocket.
~Example of overages in hosting bill
For some reasons, we experienced some traffic peaks in a two months period and we were caught off guard with the hosting bill. It is not the price that shocked us, but it made us think that hitting hosting bandwidth could lead to some challenges especially for small website owners.
So, how do you save hosting bandwidth and potentially saves up hundreds of dollars each month?
Step by step guide to preserve hosting bandwidth and avoid overages
We had been using WordPress since 2004 and we have a fair share of WordPress hosting experiences not only with this site but with hundreds of clients' sites. The following are some of the best ways to save hosting bandwidth that we use.
Reduce the upload size
One of the most common mistakes done by many WordPress site owners is uploading unoptimized files directly to WordPress.
Yes, WordPress CMS will scale down the images but this happens only when the images are in use.
So, how to reduce the upload size effectively?
~Reducing upload size helps to reduce hosting bandwidth
If you are uploading images to WordPress, it is recommended to optimize the images before uploading them to WordPress. Optimized images help to improve website loading speed and reduce bounce rate at the same time. We love using TinyPNG to optimize images in PNG format, while JPEG compression for JPEG formats.
We also install ShortPixel or Imagify for WordPress websites that we manage for our clients to further optimize the images on the fly.
If you are uploading PDF files, you can also optimize PDF by reducing the size using online PDF compressor such as ILovePDF.com.
Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) service
A CDN serves more than just security and faster loading speed for websites. Using a CDN, you can easily reduce the hosting bandwidth and avoid overages to your hosting bill.
There are many free and paid CDN services that you can use such as Cloudflare. The free plan comes with bandwidth saving features as it serves static files directly from the cache instead of loading from your server.
~Using a CDN for your WordPress site can reduce hosting and server bandwidth
As the data is not requested or pulled from your hosting server, there is minimal or no bandwidth usage at all for that specific task.
Here's a screenshot of one of the websites that we manage.
~A CDN helps to reduce server bandwidth usage
In the past 7 days, 12 GB worth of data cached via Cloudflare and this can be an enormous saving for your web hosting account.
Disable file hotlinks
A hotlinking takes place when someone embeds content (images, music, videos, and documents mostly) from your site in another site with the direct file URL.
Effectively, the other site is stealing bandwidth and generating unnecessary traffic hits on your website consuming your hosting resources.
~Hotlinking prevention can save bandwidth
If you want to save hosting bandwidth, we recommend you to enable hotlink protection to prevents other websites from directly linking to files on your WordPress website.
How to enable hotlink protection in WordPress?
If you are using Cloudflare for CDN and security, you can easily enable hotlink protection from your Cloudflare control panel. By default, Cloudflare enables the hotlink protection for all new account created recently.
If you are not using Cloudflare, security plugins such as iThemes security plugin come with hotlink protection.
Do you know that hotlink protection is also very effective in avoiding DDoS and malicious attacks on WordPress websites?
Compression and optimization helps to save server bandwidth
The process of optimizing your CSS, HTML and JS on WordPress doesn't only make your site loads faster, it helps to reduce server bandwidth too.
These files are often big in size and they load automatically for each website visitor.
~Reduce bandwidth usage with compression and optimization in WordPress
Optimizing these files will make them smaller in size and directly reduce the size of the page load. If you are using WordPress, installing a WordPress cache plugin will help you perform all the optimization in just a few clicks (no coding skills required).
Looking for the best speed optimization plugin?
We use WP Rocket and we cannot recommend it enough. This is by far the best plugin when it comes to optimizing CSS, HTML and JS files in just a few clicks.
Gzip is a form of data compression — it takes a chunk of data and makes it smaller. The original data can be restored by un-zipping the compressed file.
It is relevant to web apps and web sites because the HTTP protocol includes the ability to gzip data that is being sent.
~Gzip compression is important for WordPress websites
This means that when it is in use, your bandwidth costs for serving the site will be lower because people visiting the site will be downloading file that has been made smaller files.
Most WordPress cache plugins come with Gzip compression feature, including WP Rocket (check it out here).
Summary
Saving and reducing hosting bandwidth is critical (for finances) especially when you are using a hosting plan that comes with limits. By using the above methods, you will be able to reduce hosting and server bandwidth effectively, while making your website loads faster.
5 Top WooCommerce Hosting Solutions That You Can't Go Wrong With (Cheapest and Fastest)
Are you looking for the best and fastest WooCommerce hosting to create your online store? Choosing the best hosting provider is one of the most important decision you’ll make for your eCommerce business.
A normal shared hosting solution may not always be a good choice when it comes to WooCommerce. This WordPress eCommerce platform requires more resources, SSL certificate and more PHP workers as compared to a typical blog or static website.
In this guide, we will go through some of the fastest WooCommerce hosting solutions (web host) for your online store.
To make the process easier, we have also hand-picked the best WooCommerce hosting providers.
These are the top eCommerce hosting companies that consistently rank high due to their quality, performance, and excellent customer support.
If you are looking for the fastest hosting for WooCommerce websites, you don't have to look any further.
WP Maven had been an established WordPress agency in Malaysia that had helped 200+ users in Malaysia alone with their websites. With the years of experience with hosting services, we truly understand the importance of choosing the best and fastest WooCommerce hosting for an eCommerce startup. Our goal is to offer insights on things you need to consider when choosing a WooCommerce hosting solution.
What is WooCommerce hosting (and why it matters)?
To host an online store with WooCommerce, you need an optimized hosting solution equipped to handle WooCommerce stores out of the box.
WooCommerce is the world’s most popular eCommerce platform. It is used by millions of small and large businesses all over the world. As it runs on WordPress CMS, so you will obviously need a hosting provider that supports WordPress.
Apart from that, you will also need a domain name (such as wpmaven.net) and an SSL certificate to accept online payment. You will also need the back-end servers to be optimized for WooCommerce for better performance.
As your online store grows, you will need to consider how to handle traffic with no downtime.
Do you know that #WooCommerce powers at least 5 million online stores worldwide in 2020?
Scalability is the key as migrating to new WooCommerce hosting is tedious and oftentimes challenging.
A reliable and great WooCommerce hosting solution will most likely offer you these that you will not get with a typical shared WordPress hosting account. Using a WooCommerce specific hosting also opens doors to getting professional support from staff trained to deal with WooCommerce websites on a daily basis.
What are the advantages of using a WooCommerce hosting solutions?
WooCommerce Ready – WooCommerce hosting companies offer pre-installed WooCommerce with a ready to use design to go with.
High Performance – Speed is not just important for user experience but also for SEO. WooCommerce hosting platforms offer faster load times for smoother eCommerce transactions.
Hosting Features – Apart from WooCommerce specific features, you get all the usual hosting features like unmetered bandwidth, huge disk space, email accounts, and more.
Security – Most WooCommerce hosting plans come with SSL certificate. This adds a security layer around data transferring from customer’s browser to your website.
WooCommerce Support – We all need help now and then. With WooCommerce hosting you get help from actual WooCommerce experts via email, live chat, or phone.
Dedicated WooCommerce Backup – Nightly backups and offsite backup storage are two powerful reasons to use WooCommerce hosting solutions.
What are the disadvantages of using WooCommerce hosting solutions?
Price – Prices for WooCommerce hosting plans are slightly higher than average shared WordPress hosting plans.
Pre-Installed Software – Some advanced users may want to install WooCommerce on their own. Pre-installed software may also include WooCommerce ready designs and bonus extensions that some users may not need.
Maintenance – Not all WooCommerce hosting plans offer automatic updates. You will still need to set up automated backups and install updates.
~Disadvantages of using WooCommerce
Now that you have looked at the pros and cons of WooCommerce hosting, you are probably still wondering if its the right solution for you?
Do I really need a WooCommerce hosting solution?
If you are just starting your first online store, you don't require a WooCommerce hosting solution. Instead, you should opt for a cheaper hosting solution, such as shared WordPress hosting.
On the other hand, if you are a small business with the intention to open a fully functional online store, then you would be better off with WooCommerce hosting.
As a business owner, your time is money and there is absolutely no reason for you to 'crack' your mind with website hosting when you should more on growing your business.
When you decide to go through a hassle-free route with a WooCommerce hosting plan, you will have a blazing fast online store ready to go with no technical skills required.
More importantly, there's an army of professional WooCommerce support team on standby and at your service.
If you want to start selling quickly, then the cost of WooCommerce hosting makes more sense and is easily justifiable.
With that being said, the below are the list of the best WooCommerce hosting with speed in mind. These are hosting plans that offer excellent performance, superior infrastructure, and knowledgeable support. We give each of them a perfect 5 out of 5-star rating.
Carry on reading below to discover the fastest WooCommerce hosting providers.
SiteGround
SiteGround is one of the top-rated hosting company in the WooCommerce community. They provide unique in-house performance optimization and security which is why they’re an officially recommended WooCommerce hosting provider.
~SiteGround Managed WooCommerce hosting plans
How fast is WooCommerce with SiteGround WooCommerce hosting?
The answer is fast ... like really fast. Take a look at the results from our recent SiteGround performance test.
~WooCommerce takes 649 ms to complete load on SiteGround server
We tested from a server in Dallas, Texas using Pingdom Tools. The WooCommerce site loads 95% faster than most websites, which is incredible.
How does SiteGround WooCommerce hosting perform with peak traffic?
Next, we tested with Load Impact to test on the server performance under stress. We started with 1 active website visitor and gradually built up to 100 unique visitors at once to see how the server would handle increased requests from multiple connections at once.
~Siteground WooCommerce hosting performs exceptionally well with Load Impact
In this chart, the blue line indicates the number of active virtual users on the site. On the other hand, the green line is the server load time. SiteGround performed rather consistent until the point where the website hits 50 users. Thanks to the advanced technology in SiteGround, it quickly recovered and page load time remained steadily low even with more users.
How does SiteGround score with the Bitcatcha test?
Bitcatcha is used to test more accurate server response time from various geographical locations.
Server response time is often used to gauge the hosting server performance as it provides more accurate results instead of the complete load of the website.
~SiteGround's response time performs moderately across the globe
Overall, SiteGround performed with flying colours in the United States and all other locations except in Japan. This is because the server location that we have chosen for the test WooCommerce site is located in the US. If your audience is in Asia, then you can ask SiteGround to move you to their Asia-Pacific servers to solve this issue.
Is SiteGround a good WooCommerce hosting solution?
We found SiteGround to be a great option for WooCommerce hosting for startups (beginners with online stores) because their support is incredibly helpful. SiteGround also offers optimized and managed WooCommerce hosting solutions with just a fraction of the price compared to the rest.
Advantages of SiteGround WooCommerce hosting
Officially recommended by WordPress and WooCommerce
Best WordPress support, good uptime, fast speed, and free SSL certificate
Free website migration
Disadvantages of SiteGround WooCommerce hosting
SiteGround doesn't offer free domain
SiteGround GoGeek plan for WooCommerce hosting is slightly expensive
SiteGround Fully Managed WooCommerce Hosting
If you are looking for a hands-off WooCommerce hosting that doesn't burn a hole in your pocket, SiteGround is definitely the only option you need to consider.
Bluehost is one of the largest hosting companies in the world and an officially recommended WooCommerce hosting provider.
Bluehost is often considered one of the best WooCommerce hosting in 2020 because it offers multiple perks including free domain and transfer.
~Bluehost WooCommerce hosting solution
How fast is WooCommerce with Bluehost WooCommerce hosting?
Again, we loaded up a test WooCommerce website on Bluehost and tested on Pingdom Tools. Here is the result:
~Bluehost performs moderately well with a full load that takes 1.2 second
As you can see above, Bluehost was able to load the WooCommerce site under 2 seconds. On average, it is 85% faster than most websites. We are very happy with the performance of Bluehost as the test site wasn’t using any caching plugins or performance optimization tips.
How does SiteGround WooCommerce hosting perform with peak traffic?
Next, we tested with Load Impact to test on the server performance under stress. We started with 1 active website visitor and gradually built up to 100 unique visitors at once to see how the server would handle increased requests from multiple connections at once.
Here's how it looks like:
~Bluehost WooCommer hosting stays stable throughout the website load test
In this chart, the blue line indicates the number of active virtual users on the site, and the green line is the server load time. The result shows that Bluehost servers were able to remain stable throughout the test even at peak traffic.
How does Bluehost score with the Bitcatcha test?
Bitcatcha is used to test more accurate server response time from various geographical locations.
Server response time is often used to gauge the hosting server performance as it provides more accurate results instead of the complete load of the website.
~Bluehost performs well in US region, while average in other regions
Results show that the response time was rather good (35 ms) with traffic generating from the United States. The response time in other locations was a little bit higher but it is still under a second.
If your target customers are in the United States, then using Bluehost would hugely benefit your WooCommerce store.
Is Bluehost great for WooCommerce hosting?
Based on our tests, Bluehost is an excellent choice when it comes to fast WooCommerce hosting solution. A huge plus point is it is very stable even with traffic spikes.
Advantages of Bluehost hosting
Bluehost offers 50% off WooCommerce hosting
Perks such as free domain name
Free 1-click SSL certificate
Pre-installed WooCommerce platform
Disadvantages of Bluehost hosting
Bluehost support can be slow at times
Some servers are slower due to overselling
Bluehost Shared Hosting for WooCommerce
Bluehost is by far one of the most affordable WooCommerce hosting solutions that you can't go wrong with. Free domains, site migration and SSL certificates are excellent perks hosting with Bluehost.
Make no mistake. WP Engine is one of the leading managed WordPress and managed WooCommerce hosting solution in the industry.
They offer in-house performance optimization, managed updates. 1-click staging environment, and superior live chat support.
~WP Engine superior WooCommerce hosting solution
How fast is WooCommerce with WP Engine WooCommerce hosting?
Here are the results from the WP Engine performance test using Pingdom Tools:
~WooCommerce website hosted on WP Engine loads insanely fast
As you can see, the test site loads fairly fast (582 ms) from a server in New York City. That's is 96% faster than most sites. At the same time, it is important to note that there was no performance optimization done to the site during the test.
How does WP Engine score with Load Impact test?
We started with 1 active website visitor and gradually built up to 100 unique visitors at once to see how the server would handle increased requests from multiple connections at once.
Load Impact Test On WP Engine Fastest WooCommerce Hosting
The green line represents page load time and the blue line represents the number of users on the site. As you can see, our test site performed really well up to 80 users, after that it started to slow down.
Overall, WP Engine server performance remained rather stable throughout the test.
How does WP Engine score with the Bitcatcha test?
Bitcatcha is used to test more accurate server response time from various geographical locations.
Server response time is often used to gauge the hosting server performance as it provides more accurate results instead of the complete load of the website.
~WP Engine server performs exceptionally well and scoring an A on Bitcatcha
Not surprising, WP Engine scores an A with its server performance. As the test server is located in the United States, both the US (W) and US (E) score well under 70 ms while showing decent response time in all other regions around the world.
Is WP Engine the fastest WooCommerce hosting solution?
Based on the tests that we had conducted, the answer is a resounding "yes". We concluded that WP Engine is definitely one of the best options for managed WordPress and WooCommerce hosting.
Advantages using WP Engine WooCommerce hosting
Optimized for WordPress and WooCommerce with a stable managed hosting platform
1-click staging environment, free SSL, and integrated support to add CDN service as an addon
Excellent customer support and a custom hosting control panel
Automatic nightly backups
Disadvantages using WP Engine WooCommerce hosting
Hosting plans are slightly higher for a starter WooCommerce store, but totally worth the money (investment) for zero downtime and hassle
WP Engine Fully Managed WooCommerce Hosting
When it comes to superior performance, WP Engine is pretty much unmatchable. It gives you the tools and remote support that you needed to grow your online store to new heights (while keeping it safe from hackers).
Liquid Web has long been in the managed WooCommerce hosting solution. They offer multiple levels of WooCommerce hosting plans including VPS, cloud sites, managed, and dedicated plans with 24/7 support.
Liquid Web is also a household brand when it comes to WooCommerce hosting solutions.
~Liquid Web WooCommerce hosting
How fast is WooCommerce with Liquid Web hosting?
Here are the test results from Liquid Web performance test with Pingdom Tools:
~Liquid Web WooCommerce hosting is also blazing fast
Just like most of Liquid Web's alternatives, it performs well under one second from a server in San Jose, California. Based on the stats, it loads 91% faster than any other test sites.
How does Liquid Web score with Load Impact test?
We started with 1 active website visitor and gradually built up to 100 unique visitors at once to see how the server would handle increased requests from multiple connections at once.
~Liquid Web remains stable through the website load test
The blue line is the number of active virtual users on the site, and the green line is the server load time. Liquid Web servers remain stable and serving at its top performance even as traffic spikes (which is a good thing).
How does Liquid Web score with the Bitcatcha test?
Bitcatcha is used to test more accurate server response time from various geographical locations.
Server response time is often used to gauge the hosting server performance as it provides more accurate results instead of the complete load of the website.
~Overall response time for Liquid Web is on a very positive note
In our test, the WooCommerce site hosted on Liquid Web is very responsive, under a second. The response time is the most responsive in the United States.
How good is Liquid Web for a WooCommerce hosting solution?
Liquid Web is no doubt one of the most powerful and reliable WooCommerce hosting companies that offer enormous features, especially when building an online store.
They had been in the business for years and they certainly have the infrastructure to make your WooCommerce store loads amazingly fast.
Advantages using Liquid Web WooCommerce hosting
Powerful managed cloud hosting that is incredibly fast
Fully managed servers, SSL included, excellent support
Easy to scale as your business grows (excellent for enterprises)
Automatic daily backups
Disadvantages using Liquid Web WooCommerce hosting
Liquid Web hosting plans are not the cheapest in town
Liquid Web Fully Managed WooCommerce Hosting
You can't go wrong with Liquid Web hosting. They are the experts in the field that ensure that your online store is always performing at its peak state.
Last but not least, HostGator is one of our first web hosting companies that we had used (that's like over 10 years ago). HostGator is popular and they host over 8 million domains worldwide.
HostGator is not only popular with WooCommerce hosting, but also with shared web hosting, managed hosting, VPS and dedicated hosting for high traffic websites.
~HostGator WooCommerce hosting plans
How fast is WooCommerce with Hostgator hosting?
Here are the results from our test using HostGator (based on Pingdom Tools):
~Speed test results with Hostgator shows that it's servers are really powerful and high performance
Hosting a WooCommerce online store with HostGator is rather decent. The website was able to load under a second (691 ms to be exact) tested from a server in Dallas, Texas.
According to Pingdom Tools, the stats show that the site is approximately 94% faster than most sites. A plus point is that we did not use any caching plugin or performance optimization plugins during the test—so the results were truly amazing.
How does HostGator score with Load Impact test?
We started with 1 active website visitor and gradually built up to 100 unique visitors at once to see how the server would handle increased requests from multiple connections at once.
~Load Impact test on HostGator hosting
The blue line is the number of active virtual users on the site, and the green line is the server load time. HostGator servers remain stable and serving at its top performance until it hits 80 concurrent users before it starts to slow down.
As we are using HostGator shared hosting plan for this test, it is quite common for shared hosting environments to experience a drop after a given number of visitors. This is because the server resources are shared between other websites that are hosted on the same server.
As your online store grows, you would need to consider upgrading to bigger hosting plans such as VPS or managed hosting solutions.
How does HostGator score with the Bitcatcha test?
Bitcatcha is used to test more accurate server response time from various geographical locations.
Server response time is often used to gauge the hosting server performance as it provides more accurate results instead of the complete load of the website.
~Overall, Hostgator performs well when the visitors are located near the datacenter
In our test, WooCommerce site hosted on HostGator is very responsive, under a second. The response time is the most responsive in the United States while the performance drops in other regions further from US.
How good is HostGator for a WooCommerce hosting solution?
HostGator is decently fast for a WooCommerce store setup. It is affordable and more importantly, scaling with HostGator is very easy too.
Advantages of using HostGator hosting
Fast and reliable hosting with good support
Free WooCommerce migration service
Excellent hosting plans for all website sizes
HostGator offers free domain for yearly plans
Disadvantages of using HostGator hosting
Renewal fees for HostGator are higher than most of its competitors
HostGator Shared Hosting for WooCommerce
Affordability and scalability are two things that HostGator excels in. If you are planning to start your first online store, you can't go wrong with HostGator.
Now that you have compared all the recommended WooComemrce hosting, it is time to decide which is the best and fastest WooCommerce hosting for your online business.
To make it easier, we have created a table with a side-by-side feature list, so you can easily compare the best WooCommerce hosting companies.
Hosting
Hosting Type
Speed (full Load)
Pricing
Free Domain
Free SSL
1-Click Install
SiteGround
Shared / Semi-Managed
649 ms
$3.95/mo
No
Yes
Yes
Bluehost
Shared
1.24 s
$6.95/mo
Yes
Yes
Yes
WP Engine
Managed
582 ms
$25/mo
No
Yes
No
Liquid Web
Managed
901 ms
$19/mo
No
Yes
Yes
HostGator
Shared
691 ms
$2.75/mo
Yes
Yes
Yes
If you are looking to start an online store with the lowest budget possible, Bluehost is your best option. Their WooCommerce hosting plans are affordable, include free domain and free SSL for $6.95 per month. By far, Bluehost offers the best value compared to any WooCommerce hosting in the market.
If you have a mid-to-large eCommerce store, then you should go with WP Engine because they offer a completely hassle-free experience, high performance hosting servers and 24/7 live chat support. While the cost is slightly higher, it’s worth the investment.
Overall, you can’t go wrong with any of the best WooCommerce hosting companies that we have compared above. All of them offer blazing fast servers, great uptime, excellent support, and different hosting plans to cater for different budgets.
Popular WooCommerce Hosting FAQs
Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about WooCommerce hosting:
Do I need WooCommerce hosting to start an online store?
If you are building an online store with WooCommerce, then you’ll need WooCommerce hosting. Hosting is the place where all your website’s files are stored. Every website and online store uses a hosting provider.
Can I install WooCommerce on my shared WordPress hosting account?
Yes, you can. However, most shared WordPress hosting plans are designed to cater to the needs of small business, blog and personal websites.
WooCommerce is a transactional app that needs more resources particularly when you have more than a hundred customers on your website any given time.
This is why we recommend you to get a WooCommerce hosting plan so that you can run your online store without any downtime and at faster speeds.
Are there any free WooCommerce hosting providers?
None that we are aware of. Even if you find a free WooCommerce hosting, we will strongly recommend that you stay away from them.
In most cases, these free hosting providers put advertisements on your website. They may even distribute malware to your customers.
Last but not least, they can shut down your website at any time without any notification. Avoid anyone who offers to give you free hosting, especially if you are serious about your site.
How much does it cost to build an online store with WooCommerce?
The total cost of your WooCommerce store is calculated based on hosting costs, domain name and SSL certificate. The cost of maintaining your online store grows as your business grows.
I already purchased a domain. Can I use it with my WooCommerce hosting?
Yes, you can. Once you purchase a domain name, you are free to use it with any hosting company. All you need to do is go to your domain settings and point its DNS to your WooCommerce hosting company.
Each of our top WooCommerce hosting companies has step by step instructions on how to do that. If you have challenges,
Do I need to buy domain and WooCommerce hosting from same company?
No, you don’t. You can buy a domain name from one company and WooCommerce hosting from another.
However, it does help to get them from the same company as you will not have to change DNS settings, and you will be able to manage your domain and hosting under the same dashboard.
If you are a beginner, you can get help with DNS settings by contacting your hosting support.
Do I need to buy any addons when signing up for WooCommerce hosting?
During the sign up process, some hosting companies will offer to sell you add-on services. You can safely uncheck them as they would add to the cost of your hosting bill.
Later on, if you feel you need one of these add-on services, then you can simply add them to your hosting plan from your account dashboard.
It is always important to understand what the upsells are and how they could possibly assist in your online store. Most of the time, you do not require the 'full package' unless you are running a high traffic online store.
How many customers can these WooCommerce hosting companies handle?
All hosting companies in our best WooCommerce hosting list handle millions of pageviews every day. They are all equipped to handle smaller stores as well as large online stores even during peak holiday shopping traffic.
The traffic your site can handle largely depends on the plan you choose. With shared WooCommerce hosting solutions such as Bluehost, SiteGround, and HostGator, your website will be able to handle 1,000 – 5,000 visitors a day with proper speed optimization.
With managed hosting providers, you should be able to handle as much traffic as you need because their team would automatically scale your account as needed.
Do WooCommerce hosting companies keep backups of my site?
When it comes to backup, most of them do. However, the number and the frequency of backup varies depending on the hosting package that you are subscribing to.
For example, managed WooCommerce hosting often offers nightly backups while shared hosting would often times be either weekly or monthly.
We don’t recommend relying on your hosting company’s backups. Instead, it is always recommended to create your own backups by using a WordPress backup plugin.
Can I change my WooCommerce hosting later?
Yes, you can totally change your WooCommerce hosting company at any time if you are unhappy with them.
Some WooCommerce hosting companies offer free migration services that you can utilize with minimum downtime. You can also move your website on your own, see our guide on how to move a WordPress site to a new host.
What are the fastest WooCommerce hosting companies in your opinion?
All the above are great WooCommerce hosting solutions. For us, our top three choices for the fastest WooCommerce hosting are:
We hope that this guide helped you find the best and fastest WooCommerce hosting for your online store.
If you have a WooCommerce hosting question that we didn’t cover, then please reach out to us using our contact form. One of our team members will respond back within 24 hours.
12 Powerful Signs You Are Not Ready To Upgrade Your Hosting Plan
Should I upgrade my hosting plan? When is the best time to upgrade my hosting plan?
As website owners, these are some of the common questions we asked ourselves. In this article, we will discuss the signs that you are NOT ready to upgrade your hosting plan.
Why?
These signs will help you remove all the guesswork — and getting you ready to upgrade to new hosting plans or save money altogether. We hope you find this article useful and do share this article with your peers!
12 powerful signs that you are NOT ready to upgrade your web hosting plan.
If your website is not generating enough traffic, there is absolutely no point to upgrade to the next hosting plan. Sure, subscribing to a powerful web hosting plan is definitely an ego boost, but it is really not worth the money.
Plus, low website traffic means that you will underutilize the web hosting servers. While most web hosting companies would be happy, your wallet (and financials) wouldn't!
~Do not upgrade hosting plan if you have low web traffic
How do determine if my website has a low web traffic?
The term "low website traffic" varies depending on the website owners and personal preferences. For us, a website generating under 50,000 traffic a month is considered low traffic.
2. Website loads under 1.5 seconds
A slow-loading website typically takes more than 1.5 seconds to load. If your website is taking a long time to load, it might be a sign to upgrade your hosting plan.
We are speed geeks — and we know that you are probably one of us too. Most of the time, we see our clients decide to upgrade their hosting plan for faster speed (more CPU and memory).
However, do you know that you don't need a website that loads fast? The definition of website loading speed varies from person to person. Some consider TTFB (time to first byte) and others consider full website loading speed as the core reason.
If you are confused on this, the best way is to determine your overall website loading speed. You do not need an upgrade if your website is loading under 1.5 seconds.
~If you cannot afford a new web host, it is best to stick to the current one (or find for alternatives)
This may sound 'dumb' for many, but unable to afford a higher hosting plan is exactly the reason why you shouldn't upgrade your web hosting.
There is no point having an expensive web hosting plan only when you have to work extra hard to reach the break even point (your website overhead = website earning).
Let's say you hit the threshold and you need to upgrade (no matter what). Here are some tips to help you find the best web hosting for your money:
Use only reliable web hosting solution (to cut cost in migration fees and downtime)
Look out for web hosting solutions that offer an all-in-one solution (such as SiteGround offering inbuilt cache—so no premium cache plugin required)
Look for other hosting alternatives if you are unable to afford the desired option
Consider quarterly, annual and bi-annual plans for more discounts
You don't need a better hosting plan (seriously)
For some WordPress owners, upgrading to a new hosting plan would means breaking the bank. Lucky for you, you probably don't need an upgrade, at least for now.
Based on personal experience, most website owners underutilize the hosting plan (hey, this is proof that hosting companies oversell their servers). The best way to overcome this is to check your current hosting plan and go into details such as the number of domains allowed, bandwidth and server space.
You don't need to go into the details such as the number of cores and RAM because these are only useful for heavy traffic websites.
4. Problems with hosting downtimes?
Are you experiencing downtimes with your current web host? If the answer is "no", you shouldn't worry much about getting a hosting upgrade.
A website down can caused by several issues, including:
Limited PHP workers
Limited bandwidth
Weak or under performing web hosting servers
Traffic spikes
DDoS attacks or hacking attempts
Incompatibility caused by themes or plugins
~A good web host with keep downtime to the minimum
One thing to remember is that every web hosting solutions will experience downtime ... at least once a year. This is absolutely normal and no one is perfect.
When your website is down, speak to the hosting support and try to get a solution from it. Most of the time, they wouldn't recommend upgrading your hosting plan unless you had hit the limits one too many times.
How to effectively manage your downtime?
Downtime happens and there's nothing much we can do about it. If you are worried of downtime, you might want to consider using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) such as Cloudflare to manage your website.
For example, Cloudflare Always Online feature that caches a static version of your pages in case your server goes offline. Of course, Cloudflare will not server the entire website details but a limited copy of it. At the very least, the basic are there and this will not impact your Google rankings or your visitor's user experience.
5. Server-level security patches
~Reliable web host with perform countless security patching to keep your site safe
Most web hosting solutions that we come across and use offer security patches when a vulnerability is discovered. If your web hosting company is doing the security patches on the back to keep your website safe, you know that you are in good hands.
And you don't require a hosting upgrade.
How to keep your WordPress website safe?
We hate to break this to you, but the responsibility of your website security lies on your shoulders (along with the web hosting company). As you determine what is installed on your site, you need to make sure that you stay on top of things.
If you are using a shared hosting and thinking of upgrading your hosting plan, you might want to hold that idea off for a little.
Instead, installing security plugins such as iThemes Security would help you harden your WordPress site. Here is our standard WordPress security checklist that we use at WP Maven.
6. Managing hosting disk space allowance
~If your hosting space is sufficient, upgrading to a new web host is not a need
How much space does your web hosting offers? In most cases, it is more than enough for your website to load and run on a daily basis without any hiccups.
Most WordPress websites can run on the lowest hosting space ... unless you are having a photography block or you are not optimizing your images before uploading to WordPress.
How to keep your web hosting disk space usage under control?
We use WP Rocket to clean our database on a daily basis. There are also tools such as Advanced Database Cleaner plugin which you can use to further clean your database. However, make sure that you keep a copy of the files just in case you accidentally deleted the wrong files.
Also, don't forget to optimize images before uploading to WordPress. This step helps you to reduce the image size, as well as keeping your hosting space within the given allowance.
7. Overboard in the hosting bandwidth
~Does your current web host offers you sufficient hosting bandwidth?
Visitors viewing your content or downloading files isn’t the only thing that can eat up website bandwidth. Today, a lot of organizations will build and promote web-based apps and other online programs.
Are you constantly hitting the bandwidth limit on your WordPress hosting?
If the answer is "yes", that's the sign that you need a hosting plan upgrade. If not, you probably don't need a web hosting upgrade (at least for now).
How to keep web hosting bandwidth low?
This happened to us more than once. We are using a managed hosting solution from Kinsta with a rather decent amount of bandwidth. However, it does happen when we hit our max and are billed for additional usages.
The easiest way to keep your web hosting bandwidth low (and not upgrading your hosting plan) is to use server files over a CDN. Here's an example of one of the clients' websites that we manage.
~Cloudflare had help that particular website in saving over 32GB of bandwidth in a month
8. Are you paying for hosting addons?
If you are using a managed WordPress hosting like us, it is quite common that these hosting plans come with some level of addons, including overhead traffic.
For example, you might be required to pay $1 for every 1,000 web traffic once you had hit your traffic quota for the month.
Paying a couple of bucks each month on top of your web hosting plan is absolutely fine especially when the traffic is merely temporary (as upgrading hosting is not a priority).
In this case, you might see a big jump in traffic if you are amp-ing up your marketing efforts with paid advertisement or being visible on the front page of Reddit.
How to reduce hosting overheads and avoid upgrading to bigger hosting plans?
Use CDN to reduce usages
Avoid purchasing addons (such as SSL certificate) and replace with Let's Encrypt which offers free SSL
Maximize the number of domains allowed within a hosting account (assuming that all of these are low traffic websites)
Affordable web hosting with a fraction of the price
We don't believe in charging you an arm and leg for excellent WordPress hosting.
9. Hosting companies that give you room for growth
~Flexibility and growth is hosting environment is crucial for website success
We said this a dozen times now. The web hosting company that you choose should be there for you, during both thick and thin moments. In other words, the ability to upgrade or downgrade should be available for you during the times that you truly needs.
Again, most large web hosting companies do allow upgrades and downgrades when you are fulfilling certain criteria. For example, you will not get a refund if you pay upfront a year. However, the balance money from the downgrade will be converted into credits for you to use at a later time.
Learn how to ask nicely for free hosting perks
Web hosting business is a super competitive and challenging one. On one hand, we have a massive, truckload of hosting competitors that are breathing down our neck. On another corner, we have hosting customers that we need to make them happy (so they stay longer).
~Treat people right and others will treat you right too
At WP Maven, we don't mind going overboard with our services (for free when others charge) because we understand that if the request comes in nicely, we felt good about helping out.
If you are thinking of upgrading your hosting plan just to get help, try these.
Learn how to ask nicely and speak to the customer support team. They are human just like us—and if you catch them on a good mood day, you are going to get a lot of help without paying a single cent!
Most web hosting support provides help with petty server stuff including installing subdomain and trying to help you install SSL certificate.
10. Leverage the additional domains quota
One of the main reasons to upgrade a hosting plan is because you had used up all the domain quota. If you have not, this is a sign that you doesn't need an upgrade, at least for now.
~Most website owners do not need advanced access to the hosting server
One of the reasons to upgrade the hosting plan is to gain certain server access. Some cheap web hosting solutions do not include this feature and if you are running a reseller hosting service, you probably need an upgrade!
Here's the thing.
Unless you really need server access, most basic web hosting solution offers SSH, FTP and SFTP which are rather sufficient for every day usage. So, no upgrading of hosting plan is required.
12. Unsure the type of hosting required
~Knowing the type of hosting solution you need is an important step for every website owner
Last but not least, this is really scary. Take a look around in Facebook Groups pertaining to web hosting. There is a huge majority of website owners who do not understand the usage of web hosting. To be exact, they have no idea which web hosting solution that they should go for.
Instead of upgrading to the next hosting plan, we suggest you to sit down and decide on the exact needs for a web hosting solution. This will help you understand more on web hosting and the type of web hosting solutions you should be getting.
How many types of web hosting services are out there?
Some golden rules for web hosting are (we love preaching these):
Shared web hosting. Best for small websites, blogs and low traffic sites. We recommend starting with Bluehost (+/- $4 per month) or SiteGround (+/- $11 per month).
WooCommerce hosting. Best for websites running WooCommerce. Here are our recommended WooCommerce hosting solutions (more than one).
Managed WordPress hosting. Best for WordPress sites that are generating over 50,000 traffic a month. This solution also comes with better server performance, improved security features and CDN services. We recommend Kinsta hosting because they are just so awesome (seriously).
Virtual Private Server (VPS). Best for sites that require heavy resources, heavy traffic and burst performance. GridPane + Vultr High Frequency are our favorite option here.
Summary: More reasons not to upgrade your web hosting plans?
Don't get us wrong. We love upgrading hosting plans because it shows that we are doing right with our website—more traffic, more sales and more resources. However, not everyone requires an upgrade for their web hosting.
Before you decide to upgrade your web hosting plan, we recommend you to follow the above steps to determine if the upgrade is necessary. After all, you might be able to save hundreds if not thousands of dollars by not upgrading, especially when you are using good web hosting services!
5 Shocking Factors That Make A Web Hosting Company Great
We strongly believe that a web hosting company should be your partner-in-crime. Without a reliable web hosting solution, your website will always be down and inaccessible to the public. A reliable web hosting solution will be there for you, during low periods and during those traffic spikes.
So, what makes a web hosting great? What makes a web hosting reliable?
When it comes to finding a great web host, speed and performance play huge roles — the differences between 1 and 200 ms is huge. What makes a web hosting great is that it is able to perform at its peak during both low and high times.
As a WordPress site owner, you had heard many 'horror' stories of how their website tanked right after a massive traffic spike. Not only you bound to lose traffic, you are losing money for every second the website is down.
Yes, that is bad.
For us, a speed difference of 0.5 seconds means a lot for our website visitors. They don't get paid visiting our website, but they are looking for information to solve their problems with WordPress.
With a fast web host, we can ensure that our website is loading at its peak 24/7.
Amazon found that for every 100ms of latency, it costs them 1% in sales.
What makes a web hosting great? A support team that is always smiling 'virtually'!
Web hosting support is critical. Creating and offering one or more means of communication channels will ensure that the client (that's you) have almost instant access to help when needed.
This is important because the Internet is a mean place. There is no place for inaccessible websites.
Let's take Kinsta support (screenshot on the right) as an example.
From time to time, we will reach out to them for some advice (okay, no one is perfect) and each time they will respond in an awesome way. This time, Nikola ended the conversion with a GIF.
~A snapshot of our conversion with Kinsta support
Let's be honest. How often do you see things like this?
If you want to know more about Kinsta, here's our review on Kinsta Hosting or you can head over directly to their website to learn more (Kinsta.com).
Excellent customer support goes a long way. Never underestimate the power of support, especially when in dear times when you needed them the most.
Editorial Team @ WP Maven
The Type Of Web Hosting Solution
Shared hosting, managed WordPress hosting or VPS. The type of web hosting solution that you choose will indirectly determine how good the web hosting company really is.
Sure, web hosting companies have responsibilities to ensure that we pay what we get but through numerous cases, we know exactly how many times that truly happen.
Do you know that there are differences between a 99.9% SLA to 99% SLA? (SLA = Service Level Agreement).
Comparison
99.9% SLA
99% SLA
'Acceptable' downtime per year
8.76 hours
87.6 hours (3.65 days)
'Acceptable' downtime per month
43.8 minutes
7.3 hours
~Number of hours of downtime allowed before compensation
Based on the table above, a 99.9% SLA represents 8.76 hours of downtime (at most) per year (approx. 43.8 minutes per month) while a 99% SLA represents 87.6 hours of downtime (at most) per year (approx. 7.3 hours per month).
While this is at the worst case scenario, large eCommerce websites or high traffic websites are going to experience massive loss in revenue during a downtime.
What makes a web host great? High uptime with proven track record, plus having a SLA is a bonus!
Scalability (With A Human Touch)
Our 5th ranking on how to determine if a web host is a great one is scalability. As a WordPress agency, we engage with a large group of entrepreneurs and startups using WordPress CMS. They come to us for a wide range of WordPress solutions and one of the most common ones are having issues being 'shutdown' by their web hosting partners.
Now, why would any web hosting partners want to shutdown a WordPress site?
Honestly, one of the main reason is because the WordPress site is taking up too much resources (especially in a shared hosting environment) and that is affecting others.
Sure, the problem lies within the website owner (yup, our clients) but there are quite a few cases where we found out that it is not entirely their issue.
~A warm customer service makes big problems felt small
Here's why.
Most website owners are not website savvy people. They are average Joe's or Jane's who are busy running their day to day business. Oftentimes, they install a whole lot of WordPress themes and plugins without actually checking the scripts and the codes. This leads to the website is taking up more resources in running PHP codes (for example) than they actually do.
Therefore, here are 3 things a great web hosting company will do.
In the web hosting business, it is not about how good the hosting product is ... it is all about the customer support that the company can render to the end users.
Yes, there are some things that are just too time-consuming but if the web hosting company can overcome that, they are going to get multiple long term clients without doing any marketing efforts.
Summary: How To Determine If The Web Hosting Is Great?
The 5 steps above are simple things you can do today to determine if the web hosting is great.
Always remember that the best web hosting providers will go all-out to help you while the subpar ones will do that (too) but with a fee.
At the same time, we recommend you to try yourself and decide because reviews on the Internet could be slightly biased!
3 Steps To Install A Subdomain In Another Server [Beginner Friendly Guide]
How do you install a subdomain on another server without affecting your primary domain and hosting? This was one of the smartest questions that were thrown at us during our last WordPress meetup. In today's WordPress tutorial, we are going to show you exactly on how to install a subdomain in another server (how to install a WordPress subdomain in another web hosting).
Why Do I Need To Install A Subdomain In Another Server?
Easy steps to setup a subdomain and install WordPress
There are several reasons you want to do this. For example, it may be a staging area or a non-productive WordPress site. You don't want to increase the load in your current hosting server or simply, you want to try out new configuration. Or maybe, your current web hosting had hit the limits and you can no longer add new domains into your account.
Either way, installing a subdomain in another web hosting account is a good move if you want to keep it separate from your primary account.
How To Install A WordPress Subdomain In Another Hosting Server?
Lucky for you, installing a subdomain in another hosting server is easy. There are 3 steps that you need to take.
Create a new account in your hosting server
Add / modify the A record on your primary server
Install WordPress CMS for your subdomain
Step 1: Create a new account in your hosting server
Create a new account in WHM
For this example, we are creating a demo install for easier understanding. We use HostWithLove reseller cPanel shared web hosting solution. The process of adding a new subdomain to your account wouldn't take more than 30 seconds.
The domain name should be {subdomain}.{domainname}. For example, we are working on our WordPress membership site, members.wpmaven.net.
Step 2: Install WordPress To The New Subdomain
Using 1-click WordPress installer to install WordPress CMS
Next, head over to 1-click installer option to install WordPress. Some web hosting solutions such as HostWithLove and BlueHost offers 1-click WordPress solution which is time-saving.
Step 3: Add / modify A record
Now, go back to your primary hosting server. Search for the DNS Manager and add the A record to point to the subdomain hosting server.
Not sure what is your server IP address? Contact your web host and they will be happy to provide it to you (make sure you don't share it with the world, thou).
DNS propagation would take anywhere from an hour to 48 hours to propagate properly. If you are seeing an add looking landing page such as the below, it means that you had not install WordPress CMS properly.
Reinstall WordPress CMS if you see this
Summary: Creating A New Subdomain In Another Hosting
The process of creating a new subdomain in another hosting server and with WordPress installed is rather easy. We hope that you find this tutorial useful and please share this with your friends!
How To Handle Heavy Traffic On WordPress Website (And Save $1k+ Per Month)?
Whether you are running your WordPress website on a shared hosting system or a managed WordPress hosting solution, you (website owners) know that there can be issues with load times when your site gets a spike in traffic. Getting too many visitors to your website may sound great, but it can actually be detrimental to your website’s overall success. If you are using a shared hosting or a low powered web host, a spike in traffic can lead to massive 5xx errors and as a result, you will lose traffic and revenue.
Lucky for you, there's a checklist to help you determine if your WordPress site is up to the task of meeting your traffic needs.
We hope you are ready to dig in deeper, because we do!
If you want to know if your WordPress site can handle heavy traffic, it is paramount for you to understand the basics of how traffic works (and how it can negatively impact your online business).
Imagine this.
Your WordPress website is an actual brick and mortar store. If you have people visiting, they may walk around the store and then leave without buying something. There will also be some visitors who may browse and then come back later to pick up an item or items that they like.
And then come Black Friday (the once a year massive sales).
Your store becomes so crowded that the “browsers” are outnumbering the paying customers, you can run into problems. You may be too backed up to take care of the ones who want to buy something. If this happens, your paying customers may leave and go to your competitors.
That’s exactly what can happen with a WordPress website. You want as many people as possible to come in and browse because they could convert into sales.
But if the website can’t handle all the traffic, it could slow down to a crawl or, worse yet, crash. This leaves your paying customers with nowhere to spend their money except with your competition.
In today’s technology-heavy market, a customer expects a page to load in just a few seconds. To be exact, under 2 seconds. If heavy web traffic slows down your load time, they will move on to the next website—when this happens, your bounce rate will skyrocket and you will send the wrong signals to Google.
The Best Hosting For High Traffic WP Sites
It comes down to only 4 — GridPane vs RunCloud vs Closte vs Kinsta. Which is the ultimate winner?
Three Powerful Methods To Handle Heavy Traffic On WordPress Sites
Here are some of the best ways to handle heavy traffic on websites:
Choose a high traffic web hosting solution
Divert and control traffic to your WordPress using CDN
Setup cache plugin to minimize website load
1. Which Hosting Plan Is Best For High Traffic Websites?
If you are just starting a blog or eCommerce store, you will most probably be using a shared hosting (which is fine). Most startup hosting solutions are great for low to medium traffic with little to no sudden peaks.
With shared hosting, your website will be placed on a server that carries hundreds of other websites on it. All of the resources, including server memory and processing speed, are shared by the various websites. If one of those sites gets a lot of web traffic, then it will cause a drain on the resources that the other sites can pull from.
Using unsuitable hosting for your high traffic website will impact your overall website performance, including slow loading speed.
When you are having bad neighbours, your WordPress website will slow down significantly and won’t be able to handle much traffic.
One way to ensure that your website can handle the traffic is with a high-performance web hosting solution. This type of hosting won’t break your bank as it is generally just one step up from a shared server.
The difference between a high-performance web hosting and a shared server is that a high-performance web hosting solution is geared towards performance, stability and scalability. It can include managed hosting, Virtual Private Server (VPS) or dedicated hosting.
Choosing the right web hosting solution that fits your website's need is critical because your site will be allocated a fair amount of server resources and probably in a dedicated environment.
In a dedicated hosting environment or in a well-optimized hosting solution, a sudden spike in web traffic will not slow down your website loading speed. You can be getting 10 or 10,000 visitors simultaneously and your site will still perform at its best.
The Best And Reliable Heavy Traffic Web Hosting Solution?
There are many reliable web hosting in the market but for us, we are in love with Kinsta hosting.
Kinsta is powered by Google Cloud Platform and it offers superior performance over its peers. This hosting solution is created to not only for heavy traffic WordPress sites, but it is also suitable for small and medium-sized ones.
If you looking for a reliable web hosting solution for high traffic websites, Kinsta is your answer.
Get Better Speed
See the differences that Google Cloud Platform could provide.
2. Enable CDN To Manage And Control Traffic Spikes
Content Delivery Network or CDN is known for its ability to control unexpected traffic spikes. Traffic spikes can come from organic methods such as being on the front page of Reddit or simply experiencing a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) or other malicious attempts.
If you are running a large website and want to handle heavy traffic effectively, using CDN services such as Cloudflare goes a long way. Now, there are 3 parts to Cloudflare in handling a high traffic WordPress site.
Web Performance Services For High Traffic WordPress Sites
Load Balancing. With Cloudflare Load Balancing, you can improve application performance and availability by steering traffic away from unhealthy origin servers and dynamically distributing it to the most available and responsive server pools.
CDN service. Cloudflare comes with built-in unmetered DDoS protection and ultra-fast static and dynamic content delivery to ensure that everyone enjoys a faster loading speed.
Argo Smart Routing. The Cloudflare network is different. It routes over 10 trillion global requests per month — providing Argo Smart Routing with a unique vantage point to detect real-time congestion and route web traffic across the fastest and most reliable network paths. On average, web assets perform 30% faster when Argo is activated.
The results of using a cache plugin is often noticeable under heavy traffic as content is served based on 'earlier cache'—this helps to reduce your server load.
Best WordPress Cache For High Traffic Websites
A WordPress cache plugin is a two-edged sword. When configured correctly, the cache will be preserved correctly and your WordPress site will load faster. However, if a cache plugin is set up wrongly, you are in a whole load of trouble—from wrongly displayed images to a broken site.
We will not go in deep into setting up a cache plugin (because there are so many different plugins out there) but if you are looking for one or more WordPress plugins that perform very well under heavy traffic load, you are in luck!
Yes, you couldn't go wrong with any of these plugins especially if you are looking for ways to handle a high traffic WordPress site.
Can My WordPress Website Handle Heavy Traffic?
This is a great question but sadly, we are unable to give a definite answer. One of the cool methods you can try right now is to head over to Google Analytics » Behavior » Site Speed » Overview.
This report will give you an idea on how fast your posts (inner content) is loading and optimizations you can perform such as lazy loading. We recommend you to set benchmarks to keep track of the changes such as cache setting tweaking, enabling/disabling CDN services and changing of web hosting providers.
Ultimately, WordPress is build to sustain heavy traffic even with multiple spikes. THe ability for your WordPress site to handle these traffic relies heavily on your backend setup.
WP Maven is a WordPress agency located in Malaysia. We work with clients from various industries with small and large WordPress projects.
Just like you, we are WordPress fanatics and we do WordPress for a living. This comparison post is created as we find it 'troubling' especially when it comes to choosing (all these are great options) a hosting solution. Ultimately, we hope you find some gems in this post.
We heard about GridPane, Closte and RunCloud for ages. We even use Kinsta hosting for most of our WordPress projects. As speed geeks, we are always finding the best WordPress hosting solution for faster loading speed.
When it comes to WordPress hosting, there are just so many options. As we decided rounded up four of the best solutions, we found out that there isn't any real comparisons between these four (GridPane vs Closte vs RunCloud vs Kinsta). Sure, we understand that no two websites are the same and the overall experience varies from one to another.
We hope that this post will give you some insights on all of them—and ultimately helping you to make the right decision.
We thrive hard to ensure that this comparison post is not going to be like "is A better than B" type of thing. Instead, we publish this 3,579 words post to give you a better understanding of what each of these services is and how they perform for your website. GridPane vs RunCloud vs Closte vs Kinsta.
You will get zero cover-ups and comparison based on our personal experience. For realistic measurements, we use a single fresh install and a productive site for this review.
GridPane.com—An Introduction To WordPress Hosting Panel
GridPane is not a WordPress hosting solution. It is a WordPress hosting control panel that allows you to manage Virtual Private Servers (VPS) running WordPress.
GridPane is not your average WordPress tool. It is used by WordPress professionals, agencies and developers in managing WordPress VPS smartly and efficiently. This WordPress control panel allows you to build servers in minutes and sites in seconds, all of them fast, secure, and ruthlessly efficient.
(i) Advantages Using GridPane
GridPane allows you to launch any managed WordPress services in just a few clicks—from VPS to WordPress security.
GridPane comes with several core advantages including:
The GridPane server stack (NGINX only) is incredibly performant and optimized for whatever you can throw at it. Your visitors won’t waste a single second waiting for pages to load.
During our test, we used Vultr High Frequency as our VPS backbone. Our productive WordPress website with under 2mb in size (homepage) loads under 1 second during all our tests.
That's blazing fast!
Stronger Than Fort Knox
All paid GridPane accounts get access to the highly performant 6G firewall. Developer accounts also get access to a ModSec 3+ compatible WAF with the OWASP 10 ruleset already in place. Tons of customization options like country blocking, paranoia settings, individual IP white/blacklisting, and more.
GridPane is build for beginners. You don't need to have server management experience to launch your first WordPress site on GridPane. The GridPane knowledge base is rather updated and 24/7 live chat support provide great support experience.
Unlimited Servers, Unlimited Sites
GridPane is really easy on the wallet with 3 different pricing structures that start from $30 per month. A single GridPane account can host unlimited servers and unlimited WordPress sites. Therefore, you don't have to worry about forking out extra money.
Automatic WSOD resolution
With tools like Monit tracking your microservices, and GridPane automatic WSOD resolution, your sites will stay up, even if your plugins aren’t playing nice with one another. This is extremely useful when it comes to (updating) themes and plugins compatibility.
(ii) Disadvantages Using GridPane
Thankfully, we didn't encounter any challenges when using GridPane. However, we discovered that there are things that GridPane can do better in the future (which some of these are already in the roadmap).
Here's a tiny little list:
Pricing structure ($30 to $100 is a big bump)
GridPane dashboard doesn't play well with Firefox
Some support tends to refer end users to knowledge base (this leads to lack of personal touch)
By far, GridPane is one of the most intuitive hosting panels that focuses in making your WordPress load faster (and more secure).
How much does GridPane costs? GridPane comes with 3 plans (including 1 hidden plan).
Pro @ $67 $30 per month. This is the most basic GridPane plan. This is a decent plan for smal to medium sized WordPress sites.
Developer @ $299 $100 per month. This is a slightly 'advanced' version with better server scurity and performance. This plan comes with automatic malware scanner, snapshot failover and high availability optional make this an excellent choice for WordPress agencies.
Enterprise @ Starts from $1,000 per month. This plan is best especially for high volume WordPress website management and of yes, white-labelling. There are also other perks such as private mastermind group and optional managed DNS for better website management experience.
(iv) Real Testimonials From Real GridPane Clients
My site never falters, it’s always fast. It just works, so all I have to do is take great pictures.
Katie Wind
Photographer
I'm really glad I found you guys. I've been concerned with speed & management... not anymore. GridPane is the perfect solution.
Ken Henderson
Digital Marketing
It’s like you’ve rounded up all the things that piss me off about WordPress and fixed them.
Emily Ottaviano
Designer, Artist, Educator
(v) Is GridPane Worth The Money?
The answer is "Yes" if you are looking to get your hands dirty with advanced WordPress hosting. GridPane is a WordPress control panel solution—so it is common that you get tons of advanced features not usually found in common shared hosting and managed WordPress hosting.
Performance, Speed & Security
The world's first hosting control panel built exclusively for serious WordPress professionals.
RunCloud.io is a PHP cloud server management panel. Just like GridPane, RunCloud is a control panel that allows you to manage servers with and without any server management experience.
More importantly, Runcloud is a very fine and cost-effective platform for managing virtual private servers (VPSes).
In short, RunCloud can be installed on your server. Subsequently, you can manage your server from their control panel. RunCloud will take care of all technicalities, such as the installation of software and packages on the server. Essentially, it makes server management a breeze.
(i) Advantages Using RunCloud.io
Just like GridPane, RunCloud is an application hosting control panel (yes, WordPress is an application). RunCloud offers all the necessary features to run a performant WordPress website. However, it is more aimed at managing applications in general.
RunCloud.io allows you to easily automate server configurations and security updates in just a few clicks. It is beginner-friendly and you certainly don't need to be a Linux expert to execute command (even though knowing coding skills is an added advantage).
Creating backups on RunCloud is a walk in the park.
Easy to use backup system allows you to backup your instances quickly and safely. Plus, it can be done in just a few clicks.
Instantaneous deployment
Renowned for One-Click Installers, while still letting you be in full control. RunCloud runs your cloud servers in optimal configurations.
Performance-driven dashboard
Our optimized dashboard allows for quick tweaks from a single interface. Pioneering user experience at its forefront.
Powerful virtual PHP machines
Alternate and run simultaneous PHP versions at your ease & convenience.
(ii) Disadvantages Using RunCloud
Personally, one of the biggest disadvantages of RunCloud is it is compatible with a wide range of applications, not only WordPress. While this is absolutely fine, this also shows that RunCloud is not geared towards an optimized WordPress 'experience'.
However, it is also important to understand that you can have an optimized WordPress instance running on RunCloud and any given VPS options with some tweakings.
(iii) RunCloud.io Pricing
How much does RunCloud costs? RunCloud offers three different pricing structures which are Basic, Pro and Business.
Basic @ $6.67 per month. The most basic plan and best for beginners and small websites.
Pro @ $12.50 per month. This option is a good one, especially with unlimited servers and ability to close servers.
Business @ $37.50 per month. Last but not least, this plan comes with Atomic Deployment (zero downtime deployment) and integration between RunCloud Hub plugin and WordPress panel is a nice final touch.
(iv) Real Testimonials From Real RunCloud.io Clients
I'm a system administrator veteran with years of hosting experience. What RunCloud has managed to create is essentially the perfect managed solution with the cloud as the backend. You're no longer need cPanel and learn Linux at all. Support is always there to help.
Wajid Hussain
Co-Founder & Partner at TechFyii
These guys are putting a lot of effort into making a super duper control panel to make my sysadmin life way easier. And the best is that it all comes with a beautifully designed interface.
Lucas Rabello Simões
Senior Graphic Designer, Hyperbridge
I'm extremely impressed with RunCloud's product. After trying a few other tools, I came across RunCloud, which has everything that I was needing and then some. I've already transferred three of my servers and plan on transitioning several more. Great work!
Nick Routsong
Lead Software Developer, Futuramic Media
(v) Is RunCloud.io Worth The Money?
RunCloud.io is pretty decent. Plus, they are made in Malaysia (we are fellow Malaysian too!). On the serious note, RunCloud pricing is probably the best in town.
If you want to have a bull run for your buck, RunCloud is a nice option to go with.
Closte.com—A Managed WordPress Hosting With Pay-As-You-Go Model
Next step is Closte. Closte is a WordPress cloud hosting solution that is powered by Google Cloud Platform. It is a managed WordPress hosting and takes a different approach as compared to WordPress control panels such as GridPane or RunCloud.
If you had done some digging, you will discover that Closte has both positive and negative feedbacks. Let's dive deep into what Closte is all about (and if the reviews are true).
Closte.com takes WordPress hosting to whole new levels with Google Cloud Platform and Litespeed servers.
Closte is the tip when it comes to offering a unique proposition to end-users (yes, that's you). For starters, it has a pay-as-you-go model which is odd but works like charm. Secondly, it comes packing with Litespeed enterprise and easy integration with third-party CDN such as Google CDN and BunnyCDN.
Litespeed Cache. The fastest WordPress caching plugin and it is improved on our platform. The fastest and most reliable way to serve PHP pages, powered by Litespeed.
Managed OPcache & Object-Cache. Dramatically improves the PHP execution time and reduces the MySQL queries.
Google Cloud CDN. World fastest content delivery using Google’s global network with 90+ POP locations.
Google Premium Network. With Premium Tier, you use the same network that delivers Google’s Search, Gmail or YouTube.
Closte.com website is self-hosted in the us-central region but powered by our distributed cache. Accessing from New York, London or Sydney, the load time is the ~same.
Closte gives you a wide range of development tools, including SSH/SFTP, Database, WP-CLI, Multiple & Custom PHP, GIT/COMPOSER and logs.
This is one reason why developers love using Closte for their WordPress projects.
Staging
Multiple staging sites. You can have multiple staging sites and push from one to another staging site.
Email. When working on the staging site, the emails sent from WordPress are delivered to your private email address.
Backups
Clone a live website. Clone WordPress with your new domain in the same or another region.
Clone from a backup. Live preview of a backup point or check how something was configured.
WP ULTIMO
Auto-configuration. Works automatically – no additional set-up required.
AutoSSL. Once your client updates the DNS records, our system will install an SSL certificate automatically.
(ii) Disadvantages Using Closte
Horror stories on Closte WordPress hosting. It is a real fact and sadly, one that is affecting the company dearly. If there is one improvement Closte could do, then it would be having a better team of customer service.
Personally, we felt that Closte support team are either very small or being carried out by the management team (they felt like being overworked, in some ways). Closte support do answers to questions and inquiries but the patience level could be improved dramatically.
The support team has a way to answer the question directly and not putting basic customer service 101 to the practise. This had lead to repeated complains on their Facebook Page and even overall review as a company.
The second weakness or disadvantages of Closte is the pricing structure. Let's discuss this below.
(iii) Closte pricing
From Closte pricing page, their tagline is "even better than nowadays cloud services" and we find it confusing, to be honest.
What you will find below are Closte vs 5 different WordPress setup pricing, namely entry level, mid tier, enterprise, Cloudways and DIY servers.
Take a look at the images below (they are comparison in pricing).
Closte pricing is charged based on many factors, including:
Number of CPU
CDN usage
Disk space
Bandwidth
Number of websites
Closte bought the pay-as-you-go model to whole new levels. On the right side, you are only paying for services you are using and you will never be billed for things you are not using/utilizing.
The downside of this payment model is that there is no fixed hosting fee per month = there is no budgeting or estimation. How much you are charged is based on how much you utilize for the month. Ouch.
(iv) Real Testimonials From Real Closte Clients
We used almost any type of hosting service, but as we go viral, our site was offline and spending money on expensive upgrades. Closte is something different to any other hosting providers!
VEJGLOBAL ITS
LLC
Once we increase our internet marketing, our site was either down or very slow, losing clients as well wasting money for internet marketing. Thnaks to Closte, we can fully focus on our business and pay as we grow.
Margaret Cheung
CEO
Coming from a shared hosting, all I can say is that Closte is insane fast to the point that you won't believe your eyes. No wonder when my WordPress is fully hosted on Google infrastructure.
Jimmy Austin
Developer
(v) Is Closte Worth The Money?
If you are looking for a WordPress hosting solution that speeds up your website dramatically, Closte is definitely right for you. Google infrastructure, Google CDN and Litespeed are just too good for a past—and this combination had proven to paid off well.
However, Close is not worth your money if you want to have a peace of mind knowing that you prefer a fixed overhead a.k.a. hosting fee every month. As Closte is a pay-as-you-go model, you will be charged more when you utilize staging features (for example) at any given month. Plus, you will be billed even more if your traffic picks up.
Overall, Closte is a great option to go with if you have a bigger budget to spend on a monthly basis for web hosting related.
Kinsta.com—A High Performance Managed WordPress Hosting With Top Notch Support
Last but not least, Kinsta is one hell of a competitor which we truly love (and for the record, this site is hosted on Kinsta Business 1 plan). Kinsta is a managed WordPress hosting solution that uses Google Cloud Platform and KeyCDN.
As of today, Kinsta is used by some of the biggest names in the industry including Matt Diggy (SEO expert), Buffer, TripAdvisor and Flippa.
So, how does Kinsta lives up to the GridPane vs RunCloud vs Closte vs Kinsta?
Let's dive in to learn more.
(i) Advantages Using Kinsta
Kinsta is built for everyone—from beginners to large enterprises. Kinsta uses one of the best cutting-edge technologies to ensure that WordPress websites load faster and stay at their peaks even when traffic skyrockets.
Kinsta uses state-of-the-art technology like Nginx, PHP 7.4, LXD software containers, MariaDB, and compute-optimized VMs to make sure your website loads in the blink of an eye. Featuring complete resource isolation, automatic scalability, and high availability.
NGINX
LXD containers
PHP 7.4
MariaDB
Bulletproof security features
Active and passive measures to stop attacks and malicious intent in its tracks. Continuous monitoring for uptime, DDoS attack detection, software-based restrictions, SSL support, and hardware firewalls. Bottom line: your site is monitored and secured 24/7.
DDoS protection
Hardware firewall
Uptime monitoring
Unlimited SSL support
Kinsta WordPress securityfeatures
Next generation infrastructure
Kinsta employs only the best technology at Kinsta, from server hardware to the software they run. No matter what development stack you use, Kinsta always have the latest framework versions installed and up to date.
Google Cloud Platform & Infrastructure
Powered by Google Cloud Platform and its 23 global data centers. Everything is interconnected over their premium tier network, designed to minimize distance and hops, resulting in fast and secure transport of your data.
Unlimited & free site migrations
Moving your site to Kinsta won’t incur any downtime. Kinsta expert migration team will take care of everything for you. Plus, they will assign a temporary domain to your migrated site and check everything before going live.
(ii) Disadvantages Using Kinsta
Until date, we have not experienced any issues with Kinsta (touch wood) and that's a good thing. If there is one improvement that Kinsta could do, we certainly hope that the pricing scale, especially for higher tiers, can be reduced by a little 🤪.
(iii) Kinsta pricing
Kinsta pricing sits nicely between affordability and performance. At this point of writing, Kinsta comes with 10 hosting plans for you to choose from.
While "10" might be an overkill for many, these plans are tailored to ensure that there is a hosting plan for everyone (or as close as possible).
Here's how the Kinsta plans look like:
Plans
# WordPress Installs
# of Visits
Disk Space
Free SSL & CDN
Starter
1
20,000
10 GB
Yes
Pro
2
40,000
20 GB
Yes
Business 1
5
100,000
30 GB
Yes
Business 2
10
250,000
40 GB
Yes
Business 3
20
400,000
50 GB
Yes
Business 4
40
600,000
60 GB
Yes
Enterprise 1
60
1,000,000
100 GB
Yes
Enterprise 2
80
1,500,000
150GB
Yes
Enterprise 3
120
2,000,000
200 GB
Yes
Enterprise 4
150
3,000,000
250 GB
Yes
Kinsta also offers 2 months free hosting when you go for annual plans
One cool advantage of using Kinsta is that all plans are on VPS level. This means that you are getting VPS servers even on the lowest tier unlike some other managed WordPress hosting solutions (where VPS is only available on higher tiers).
(iv) Real Testimonials From Real Kinsta Clients
Kinsta provides an amazing service, with a simple control panel and top performance. Their support is even more amazing, always available, and fast at fixing any issue.
Massimo Chieruzzi
AdEspresso
With Kinsta's professional support we sleep safely at night. And with blazing fast servers, we serve our customers better than ever before!
Mikkel Sciegienny
Proximo
Our agency has worked with all the major hosting platforms. Kinsta is crazy fast and the support is stellar! We moved all our clients to Kinsta and haven't look back.
As a matter of fact, we strongly believe that Kinsta had grown far and wide thanks to the excellent customer support team!
Verdict: GridPane vs RunCloud vs Closte vs Kinsta
Finally, our verdict is in. GridPane, RunCloud, Closte and Kinsta are all awesome WordPress hosting solutions and control panels. But, it is also unfair to compare them side by side.
Here's what we think about each of them, and how they will fit nicely into your WordPress development projects.
Verdict: GirdPane is the clear winner over RunCloud when it comes to WordPress hosting panel. With unlimited servers and usage even for their lowest tier at $30, GridPane is extremely affordable for WordPress professionals who want to enjoy fast blazing speed.
Best for: GridPane is best for WordPress professional, web developers and WordPress agencies.
Verdict: RunCloud.io is a great alternative to GridPane when it comes to WordPress hosting panel solution. By far, this is an excellent option if you are looking for affordability. The entry level for RunCloud costs only $6.67 per month and this is the best you probably can get.
Best for: Startups, entrepreneurs and tiny WordPress websites. It is also a great platform to test out new layout and design works for WordPress.
Verdict: A decent WordPress hosting solution that offers performance and top notch infastructures. However, the pay-as-you-go model is a turn down especially for larger websites because you are unable to forecast the overhead for hosting service.
Best for: Large websites and corporations (with big pockets) that rely heavily on traffic generation from WordPress websites.
Verdict: The overall winner for performance, affordability and scaling in managed WordPress hosting. It is also important to note that Kinsta has the best customer support that often goes beyond their job scope to make your day.
Best for: 10 different pricing tiers make Kinsta suitable for everyone who uses WordPress for their websites.
