Fastest WordPress Hosting 2021

Choosing the fastest WordPress hosting can be difficult. A simple Google search will retrieve many providers claiming to be the fastest. But how can you be sure? I’m here to tell you that there are vast differences between the best and worst hosting providers out there.

Luckily, there is a handful of hosting providers that really do put speed first. But even the best hosts have their niche; some cater to startups and SMEs while others are primed to serve larger businesses.

Not all hosting providers suit every business type. In this article, I’ll cut through the noise and bring you the fastest WordPress hosting provider for your business size. As you read through the information in this guide you will know which package is best for you. If you’re still not sure, feel free to ask a question in the comments section.

Your business size and the functionality of your website will determine the hosting company you choose and the price you pay. So without further delay, let’s look at the fastest WordPress hosting in 2020:

TL;DR – if you don’t have time to read the full article the two options below came out on top

Beware of Shared Hosting

You might have heard the term shared hosting before – usually in a negative context. Shared hosting is a hosting setup where hundreds and thousands of websites share the same server and its limited resources.

The offer usually goes like this. $2 per month with unlimited disk space, emails, and bandwidth. Sounds like an amazing deal? Unfortunately, it’s not. They leave out a couple of important things:

• Your site will compete against thousands of other sites for processing power
• You will all fight for database calls
• Customer service will be poor at best and non-existent at worst
• Security is often poor
• Speed is not a priority
• Useful extras like staging capabilities are generally not offered

GoDaddy, Bluehost, HostGator and all hosting providers owned by the EIG group use this type of business model. I recommend avoiding them at all costs. If you see the “Reduce Server Response Times (TTFB)” warning in the Opportunities section of your PageSpeed Insights report then you might want to consider switching to a better host.

It’s also important to mention that you get what you pay for. I love a bargain and always try to get the best value for money when buying goods or services. When it comes to hosting it is worth paying that little bit extra.

Quality hosting is one of the four pillars of performance that a fast site is built upon. All it takes is one weak pillar and all your efforts will fall short leaving you with high bounce rates, poor conversions, and lower search rank.

Fastest WordPress Hosting for Small Businesses

Luckily not all shared hosting packages are bad. Many providers offer quality packages specifically built for speed-obsessed WordPress users. These packages are often referred to as “Managed WordPress Hosting”.

However, you will be sharing a server with other users. Make no mistake, this is shared hosting except the Ferrari version. The provider will have strict limitations in place to ensure everyone gets their fair share of server resources.

Three of the best operators in the area of WordPress focused shared hosting are SiteGround, A2 Hosting, and In-Motion.

The things I want to see when assessing a host are:

• A managed service so I don’t have to worry about maintaining the server
• An environment built for WordPress
• A staging site with just a few clicks
• A clear focus on page speed
• Exceptional support
• Security-focused
• Value for money

We spent a lot of time assessing the many hosts out there and it was difficult to pick the final three. SiteGround, A2 Hosting and In-Motion tick all the boxes. They do not cram too many websites into a single server. Instead, they limit numbers and offer packages with different levels of bandwidth and processing power. All have excellent customer support, robust security and a clear focus on speed.

You will not regret going with any of them. However, there is one clear winner when all factors are considered. And that goes honor goes to SiteGround. While their renewal fee is a little more expensive than the others, their support and clear focus on WordPress speed gives them the edge over the competition.

Perfect hosting for:

✅ Standard brochure sites with little to no interactive elements
✅ Smaller e-commerce stores with a limited product range
✅ New businesses with lower amounts of traffic

Not good for:

❌ Those on extremely limited budgets
❌ High traffic and large e-commerce stores
❌ Hobby, personal profile and creative portfolio sites – overkill

Fastest WordPress Hosting for Large Businesses

Next, we have managed cloud hosting. This type of package is best suited to medium-sized businesses right up to enterprise-level websites. There are other types of hosting like VPS and dedicated but if you want maximum power with minimum effort then managed cloud is the way to go.

1. Managed Cloud Hosting provides the most power per dollar spent
2. It’s really easy to scale up as your business grows
3. Enterprise-level hosting speeds for non-techies

Managed Cloud Hosting gives you access to data centers like Amazon and Google. This realm is usually reserved for back-end developers. The word managed lets you know everything will be taken care of for you.

The cloud offers some of the most powerful computing on the planet harnessed to drive your website. A cloud solution is also excellent for page speed. You will have incredible power under the hood and this means much faster load times.

This option makes sense for mid-sized e-commerce businesses and websites with an interactive element. If you’re running something like WooCommerce with many products and decent traffic you might want to consider an upgrade.

The big names in this space are Cloudways, RunCloud, and Closte. If you want face-melting speeds any of these three finalists will work. However, Cloudways beats the other two when it comes to support, a focus on WordPress sites and performance per dollar spent.

Let’s take a look:

Perfect hosting for:

✅ WooCommerce sites with high traffic and/or large product range
✅ Busy e-commerce with a growing amount of customers
✅ Membership sites

Not good for:

❌ Those on extremely limited budgets
❌ Smaller websites with low traffic
❌ Complete WordPress beginners

What Do We Use at Load Labz?

We use Cloudways at Load Labz having started out on SiteGround. I still have some smaller client sites on SiteGround and I’m very happy with the service. However, Load Labz is a website all about page speed optimization and for that reason, we made the decision to beef up our hosting and moved to Cloudways.

If you run a membership site or an e-commerce site with WooCommerce or something similar then you might want to move to a more powerful hosting provider. From medium-sized businesses to enterprise-level, choosing any of the three providers will give you the extra power needed.

Hosting for Hobby Sites

Although this article isn’t aimed at those looking to host small websites, there are probably some of you interested to know what providers offer the best budget packages. These three were already mentioned for small businesses and startups however these packages are their budget offerings.

A2 Hosting, SiteGround, and InMotion Hosting. Any of these three will give you decent low-budget hosting with all the features you can expect at this price point. You will find cheaper but it will most likely be disappointing and lack the support when needed.