Fast and responsive web hosting is critical to the success of your website, as it will attract more visitors, improve SEO (search engine optimization) and enhance the overall user experience. A fast website is more likely to attract and retain more visitors than a slow one.
But what does it depend on? Primarily on your hosting provider. However, not all providers can offer the desired speed and generally fast service. That’s why we have thoroughly researched and tested the fastest web hosting providers. The tests mainly included website loading speed and stress tests.
In this article, we will delve into the 6 fastest hosting providers that have proven to be the fastest on the market. We will delve into their features and prices and compare them with other rivals.
Table of Contents
6 Fastest Web Hosting Providers: Ranked
- Hostinger – the best affordable and speed-oriented web hosting
- SiteGround – performance oriented web hosting
- InMotion Hosting – the fastest web hosting for small businesses
- Liquid Web – fast and reliable VPS hosting
- WP Engine – fast web hosting
- Cloudways – the fastest VPS hosting for businesses
Fast web hosting services – our detailed list:
We have tested dozens of web hosting providers to narrow down the list and offer only the ones that proved to be fast enough. Below, we will dissect their features, speed optimization tools, plans and pricing, and offer our practical experience with the service.
1. Hostinger – best affordable and speed-oriented web hosting overall
| Features: | LiteSpeed Web Server, unlimited bandwidth |
| TTFB: | 207ms |
| Page speed: | 936ms |
| Best for: | The cheapest speed-oriented provider |
Hostinger is the best and fastest web hosting provider. It has many optimizations to speed up your website and provide impressive speeds by using LiteSpeed servers, which allows Hostinger to implement your custom hosting panel. This combo provides overall better speeds and performance.
Interface. Hostinger is very easy to set up, navigate and use. Its intuitive custom control panel (hPanel) allows you to manage everything from billing to all functionality related to your website.
Features. This provider has numerous speed-enhancing features, such as LiteSpeed Web Server (with this technology, Hostinger can handle more visitors with minimal resources), LiteSpeed Cache (improves page load times), multiple versions of Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) (can also speed up your website). In addition, Hostinger has page speed and Analytics dashboard integrations, which helps the user track site speed performance, website requests, bandwidth usage and other data.
Performance. In terms of performance, Hostinger makes it very easy to fight latency by offering 7 server locations to reduce load time (you can choose from Brazil, Indonesia, UK, Lithuania, Netherlands, Singapore or USA). We use tools like Pingdom, GTMetrix to evaluate and monitor site data. Overall, Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) loading takes only 849 ms, which is an excellent result:
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Average response time: | 511ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 0.8s |
| On-site traffic: | 50 VUs |
Customer Support. Hostinger has a truly exceptional support team – there are 24/7 live chat options, a ticketing system, emails and a knowledge base. We were very pleased with the professionalism and speed of the agents – ready to help solve your hosting problems.
Pricing. Hostinger’s starting price is $2.99/month (Premium plan). It includes a free domain, SSL, weekly backups, at least 1 email account, 100 websites, 100 GB of SSD storage and bandwidth for 25,000 monthly visits.
Cheap, fast and full of performance boosters, Hostinger is truly one of the best options for those looking for the fastest web hosting.
Pros
Cons
2. SiteGround – best in-house performance-optimizing tools
| Features: | Native CDN, Ultrafast PHP, SuperCacher |
| TTFB: | 90ms |
| Page speed: | 1.1s |
| Best for: | Performance-centric provider for small business websites |
SiteGround is another fast web hosting service. It is known for its performance-focused approach to hosting, thanks to its effective speed-boosting features, such as the Optimizer plugin for small business websites. Our stress tests showed that the speeds are very reliable and consistent, even with increasing number of visiting users.
Interface. SiteGround’s design is very intuitive yet feature-rich and efficient. Even if you are a beginner, setting everything up is very simple. Implement the internal control panel – a modern and functional option even if you are a novice user.
Features. There are multiple speed-oriented features that make SiteGround stand out from the crowd. First of all, ultra-fast PHP decreases server response time (TTFB), SuperCacher helps increase the number of visitors your site can handle, as well as increase the loading speed of your site. In addition, there is a SiteGround Optimizer plugin to improve site performance by allowing users to manage their cache settings.
Performance. SiteGround has 7 servers to fight latency (USA, UK, Australia, Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Singapore). In terms of performance, the results are well below Google’s recommended limit – LCP took only 872ms and full load time was 1.1s. We evaluated it with Pingdom and GTMetrix tools.
| Uptime: | 99.99% |
| Average response time: | 217ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.8s |
| On-site traffic: | 50 VUs |
Customer support. The vendor has almost every possible customer support option available: intelligent knowledge base, live chat, email and ticketing system. The support we received during testing was professional, fast and friendly.
Pricing. SiteGround pricing starts at $2.99/month (StartUp plan) – includes 1 website, 10GB SSD storage, and can support 10k monthly visits. Other plans also offer good value for money.
Overall, with its various speed-boosting features that deliver remarkable results, it’s no wonder SiteGround is among the fastest web hosting providers.
Pros
Cons
3. InMotion Hosting – the fastest web hosting for small businesses
| Features: | Free SSL, emails, security features, UltraStack |
| TTFB: | 140ms |
| Page speed: | 825ms |
| Best for: | Fast and secure website hosting |
A veteran in the industry, InMotion Hosting is a popular choice for faster web hosting, especially for those with small businesses. While the provider’s pricing is on the premium side, its features like UltraStack ensure fast hosting that can seamlessly handle traffic.
Interface. InMotion has the well-regarded cPanel for all tasks related to hosting management. The panel is easy to navigate and get used to. You can also use BoldGrid – a WordPress website builder that allows you to create a professional-looking site in no time.
Features. InMotion Hosting’s improved performance and speed are closely related to its UlstraStack feature, which includes NGINX proxy cache, FastCGI PHP process manager and Brolti compression. All this technical-sounding hardware and software speeds up your website by caching web content in memory to avoid loading source code for each new visitor.
Performance. To prove that all those features really add up to site speed, we put InMotion Hosting to the test using Pingdom and GTMetrix. Its full load time took just 825ms, and at the same time – its server responsiveness was very good – 140ms. Overall, InMotion handled the traffic without any problems. However, it only has data centers in the US and Amsterdam.
| Uptime: | 99.98% |
| Average response time: | 759ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 0.8s |
| On-site traffic: | 50 VUs |
Customer support. InMotion has a large number of support options – a community forum, knowledge base, blog, 24/7 live chat, email, ticketing system, and even a phone line. You can be sure you’ll get the technical support you need.
Pricing. This provider’s plans are very affordable, starting at $2.29/month (Core plan) – includes 2 websites, 100 GB of SSD storage, and 10 email accounts. Other plans also offer generous resources.
Finally, InMotion impressed us with its speed and ability to handle heavy traffic. Fast and reliable, we have no complaints.
Pros
Cons
4. Liquid Web – fast and reliable managed VPS hosting
| Features: | Managed VPS, Cloudflare CDN, powerful bare servers |
| TTFB: | 186ms |
| Page speed: | 1.2s |
| Best for: | Performance-oriented provider for mission-critical projects |
Liquid Web is a premium managed VPS provider that is also very fast and can handle mission critical projects. It is generally known for powerful servers and during our internal testing, it only experienced a few hops.
Interface. Although Liquid Web is a more advanced solution, the plans come fully managed with multiple control panels (e.g. cPanel). You can handle the general setup, but Liquid Web will do the rest and take care of the maintenance. In just a couple of minutes, you’ll have your control panel set up and ready to go.
Features. Liquid Web has powerful servers, which are extra fast and responsive. For faster loading time, the provider includes a free Cloudflare CDN. The host is also very reliable, as it comes with a 100% uptime guarantee backed by SLAs. This means you can expect your site to be up at all times.
Performance. As for our tests, Liquid Web’s LCP took 1.2 s, below Google’s recommended limit. Server responsiveness was also very good: only 186 ms. To combat latency, Liquid Web offers 4 data center options (3 in the US and 1 in Europe). We determined the following results using Pingdom and GTMetric tools.
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Average response time: | 521ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.2s |
| On-site traffic: | 50 VUs |
Customer support. Liquid Web has several customer support options: live chat, phone or 24/7 tickets. In addition, you can check out their tutorials and documentation available in the knowledge base. We also liked that it was fast and efficient during our tests.
Pricing. Regardless of the plan, you get a control panel of your choice, SSL certificates, automated backups and strong security. Prices start at $15.00/month (2GB RAM). Overall, it’s the most expensive of the spectrum.
Overall, Liquid Web is fast and reliable. The provider’s servers are also cluster-free, and even without many speed optimization features, it is well suited for larger projects or sites.
Pros
Cons
5. WP Engine – speedy web hosting
| Features: | Free SSL, CDN, managed WordPress, Google Cloud, and AWS servers |
| TTFB: | 140ms |
| Page speed: | 1.1s |
| Best for: | Premium and managed WordPress hosting |
If you’re looking for lightning-fast managed WordPress hosting, WP Engine should be on your list. With the implementation of Google Cloud and AWS servers, this provider ensures the newest hardware for your site. Plus, it is well equipped with speed optimization features.
Interface. WP Engine is a bit more advanced than other shared hosting options on this list. Still, the control panel is very organized and clean. Most tasks are done manually, but there are helpful explanations.
Features. To speed up the site, WP Engine uses a unique approach – Google Cloud and AWS servers, 20 data center options around the world to combat latency, and a free CDN to improve site performance. Since the provider specializes in managed WordPress hosting, it offers several customizations and automatic updates for your WordPress site to ensure the fastest possible web hosting.
Performance. WP Engine showed us very good test results with Pingdom and GTMetrix tools. Site TTFB and full load time were 140ms and 1.1s. However, the cheapest WP Engine plan is not powerful enough to cope with 50 VUs. The test itself showed that WP Engine is able to handle 30 VUs (around 30,000 monthly visits) perfectly well.
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Average response time: | 662ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.1s |
| On-site traffic: | 30 VUs |
Customer service. This provider offers a wide variety of customer support options: 24/7 live chat, email and phone line. In addition, there is also an extensive resource center. We contacted the agents via live chat a couple of times. Each time, we got a prompt and professional response.
Pricing. Although WP Engine’s prices are considerably higher than its contenders, the cheapest plan starts at $20.00/month (Startup plan). It includes 1 site, comes with 10GB of storage, 50GB of bandwidth, and supports up to 25k monthly visitors.
All in all, WP Engine ticks all the boxes when it comes to offering fast web hosting. Fast and capable of handling traffic, this is one of the winners.
Pros
Cons
6. Cloudways – fastest VPS hosting for businesses
| Features: | Free SSL, many server and location choices, built-in cache |
| TTFB: | 155ms |
| Page speed: | 914ms |
| Best for: | Fast VPS hosting for bigger projects |
Cloudways is not an ordinary name, but rather a unique provider, which also made our list as one of the fastest web hosting providers. Cloudways configures and manages servers from the best VPS hosting providers. Cloudways also offers many features to speed up performance.
Interface. Cloudways uses its own dashboard to manage servers and applications. The panel itself is clean and comprehensive. In addition, website configuration and SSL certificate installation is more than easy. The only thing that can be a bit tricky is pointing your domain to the server.
Features. Cloudways is no slouch when it comes to its features. All servers have dedicated resources, there are also SSD drives and PHP-FPM to reduce page load times. Built-in caches also help speed things up. Cloudways has numerous data centers. You can choose from up to 20 locations, which is also what will help speed up the site.
Performance. Pingdom and GTMetrix testing revealed that these features are working hard and are not just there for decoration. For LCP, our test site took 759ms. Not the best on the list, but in the top three, which is quite a feat considering the caliber of providers on the list. Cloudways’ final hurdle is a stress test (with the K6.io tool) to see how well it handles a 50 VU traffic increase:
| Uptime: | 99.98% |
| Average response time: | 229ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 759ms |
| On-site traffic: | 50 VUs |
Customer Service. Cloudways offers several customer support options: 24/7 live chat and online ticketing. The vendor also has a community forum and knowledge base. The interactions we had during our internal testing were efficient and helpful.
Pricing. This web hosting provider has many plans, the cheapest is DigitalOcean – it starts at $7.50/month and provides 1 core processor, 1GB RAM, 25GB SSD, and 8 server locations. Considering the complexity of the provider, this is good value for the money.
Overall, Cloudways is fast, stable, and has exceptional traffic handling – we would give the provider an A+.
Pros
Cons
How did we Test the Fastest Web Hosting Providers?
In our rigorous evaluation of the fastest web hosting providers, we employ a comprehensive testing methodology to identify the best of the fastest web hosts. The following points summarize the key aspects of our testing process:
What Does Hosting Speed Rely on?
The speed of a web host depends on several key features that contribute to its overall performance. These include:
By focusing on these features, web hosting providers can optimize their infrastructure, reduce latency and deliver faster load times for websites.
Why Web Hosting Speed Matter?
Now, there is a reason why so many providers are quick to claim that they are the fastest on the market. This is because they are well aware that speed has far-reaching effects when it comes to the success of a website. Among the most affected are search engine rankings and user experience.
Search Engine Ranking
Search engines have long made the importance of speed clear. In fact, in mid-June 2021, Google began using page experience as part of its ranking systems. And, speed plays an important role in page experience.
Moreover, as early as 2010, Google stated that it takes into account the loading speed of websites when ranking them. Moreover, in 2018, the search engine launched its speed update, which makes page speed a ranking factor for mobile searches as well.
Furthermore, if you rely on advertising to generate revenue on your website, hosting speed becomes even more critical. Ads often introduce additional code and content that can slow down the site. A fast hosting infrastructure ensures that your site can handle the added load of ads without compromising overall performance, ensuring that ads are delivered quickly and smoothly to visitors.
Here’s what you can deduce: you may have a great website with excellent content, but chances are it won’t attract attention if it’s slow.
User experience
User experience (UX) is basically the way a user interacts with and experiences your website. It takes into account several elements, including speed.
Simply put, a website with a good UX will provide visitors with what they are looking for quickly. As for the definition of “quickly,” it’s literally in the blink of an eye. If it takes longer, your site will have a high bounce rate.
This is the percentage of visitors who left (or bounced) without taking any action. Obviously, this is not good, since what you want is for your visitors to click on a link, fill out a contact form, view other pages, and so on.
| 100ms | Retail customer engagement increased by 5.2% when load time was decreased by 100ms. Walmart’s revenue is up 1% for every 100ms improvement in speed. |
| 400ms | Yahoo’s traffic increased by 9% when it reduced its page load time by 400ms. |
| 1s | 1s delay reduces customer satisfaction by 16%. The BBC loses an additional 10% of users for every extra second it takes to load. Amazon would lose $1.6 billion/year if its site speed slowed down by 1s. |
| 2s | 47% of consumers expect a page to load in 2s or less. |
| 3s | 53% of mobile site visitors will leave a page that takes longer than 2s to load. |
| 5s | The first 5s of page-load time have the highest impact on conversion rates. |
Now that it’s clear why speed is important let’s talk about what to look for when it comes to speed and what exactly is considered fast.
Which factors indicate your website’s speed?
When looking for the fastest web hosting provider, there are a few things to keep in mind. Among the most important are Large Contentful Paint (LCP), time to first byte (TTFB) and time to full load.
Let’s dig a little deeper and take a closer look at each of them:
Ultimately, even if you have a great website full of entertaining animations and amazing content, if it doesn’t load fast, visitors will bounce. So make sure your content is light and close to your target audience, and all will be well.
Conclusion
Having a fast website is a must for success. There are several factors that contribute to web hosting speed, such as server response time, efficient caching mechanisms and optimized content distribution networks. Among the many web hosting providers tested, only a few made it to our top list and one stood out as the best fast web host: Hostinger.
With its state-of-the-art infrastructure, Hostinger offers impressive server response times, robust caching solutions and an extensive network of content delivery servers. These qualities ensure that websites hosted on Hostinger’s platform load quickly and deliver a smooth user experience.
FAQs
What is the fastest web hosting platform?
Hostinger is considered to be the fastest web hosting platform. With optimized servers, caching mechanisms and a global network of data centers, it guarantees excellent loading speed and performance. Many users appreciate its fast and reliable hosting services, making Hostinger a popular choice in the industry.
What is fast web hosting?
Fast web hosting is a hosting service that provides fast load times and high performance for websites. It usually involves the use of enhanced server configurations, caching mechanisms, content delivery networks (CDNs) and robust infrastructures to ensure fast delivery of web pages to visitors. We recommend Hostinger as one of the fastest web hosting providers.
What is the fastest WordPress hosting?
The fastest WordPress host is SiteGround. The provider performs extremely good tests: its Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which measures when the most content on the page is visible, takes only 711 ms.
Why is fast hosting important?
Fast hosting is important because it affects user experience, search rankings, conversion and much more. Essentially, it plays one of the major roles in deciding the success of your website.
Is my website fast?
Your website is considered fast if it passes certain benchmark tests. Its LCP should be less than 2.5s and its time to full load less than 3s. The TTFB should be less than 200ms. To check the speed of your site, you can use Google PageSpeed Insights or GTMetrix.
Henry Sprung is an e-commerce tech blogger with several years of experience in online retail. Alex’s blog focuses on topics such as online marketplaces, payment processing, and digital marketing for e-commerce businesses. Henry’s expertise in e-commerce provides valuable insights into the latest trends in online retail and how businesses can use these platforms to grow their sales. He is a valuable resource for online retailers and entrepreneurs looking to start their own e-commerce businesses.
To read more similar articles, click here
Thanks for visiting our Website. If you appreciate our work, kindly show us some support in our comments section 🙂
