See the results of independent testing 2023
Every year, data science supernerd Kevin Ohashi runs a massive batch of independent tests of WordPress hosting services across different price categories.
It’s kinda like Motor Trend’s World’s Greatest Drag Race, except for WordPress hosting.
Companies need to willingly participate and given the popularity of Kevin’s work, it’s pretty surprising which companies don’t opt in and don’t put their service up to detailed public scrutiny.
Nonetheless, WPX has been opting in for the last 4 years and you can see our 2019, 2020 and 2021 results – Spoiler Alert: we received the highest Top Tier award and fastest global speed average for the last 2 years.
But 2022 is a whole new dealio and Kevin tweaked a bunch of stuff to analyze WordPress hosts even more deeply, if that was possible.
So What Happened In 2022?
Well, in the sub $25 a month category, the UFC-style combatants were.
Notable no-shows here were Bluehost, Hostgator, and A2. WP Engine and Kinsta pricing meant that they could not compete here if they wanted to, which they apparently didn’t.
From our own experience with WPX customers, we know that page loading speed is what they care the most about and it is what WPX has focused on and invested in the most since we started in 2013, hence our own custom CDN (called ‘XDN’), launched in 2018.
In Kevin’s 2022 Global Average Speed Testing (see full test here) in the under $25 monthly price category, here are the 1st to last results he achieved using webpagetest.org:
HOST | BEST GLOBAL AVERAGE TIME IN SECONDS (lower = better) |
---|---|
WPX.net | 0.21 |
20i | 0.30 |
34SP.com | 0.42 |
Cloudways | 0.46 |
DreamHost | 0.51 |
EasyWP by Namecheap | 0.75 |
Eco Web Hosting | 0.76 |
GoDaddy | 0.82 |
GreenGeeks | 0.82 |
HostXNow | 0.83 |
ICDSoft | 0.84 |
InMotion Hosting | 0.85 |
Krystal Hosting | 0.86 |
Lightning Base | 0.86 |
ManagedWPHosting | 0.88 |
MechanicWeb | 0.88 |
Nexcess | 0.88 |
Pressable | 0.89 |
raidboxes | 0.92 |
RSHosting.com | 0.93 |
Sailed.io | 0.96 |
SiteGround | 0.97 |
VapourHost | 1.09 |
WPCycle | 1.19 |
The 10/12 locations where WPX won in this category were:
- Virginia, USA
- California, USA
- Salt Lake City, USA
- Frankfurt, Germany
- Singapore
- Mumbai, India
- Tokyo, Japan
- Sydney, Australia
- Brazil
- Dubai, UAE
The 3 slowest performers on global average speed in this category were WPCycle (last), Vapourhost (2nd last) and SiteGround (3rd last).
Kevin’s Conclusion In The Under $25 Category?
“WPX had the fastest average response times and was the fastest in 10/12 locations. MechanicWeb and EcoWebHosting picked up the other two fastest single location scores. Pressable had the second fastest average and EcoWebHosting the third fastest average” (read full test results here).
And Kevin’s Overall 2022 Verdict On WPX In This Price Category?
“WPX had the fastest asset load times on the Load Storm test. WPX had the second fastest average response time and third fastest p95 on the Static test. WPX had the fastest average response time in WPT and had fastest single location score in 10/12 locales. WPX did very well and earned itself Top Tier status again.”
What About The $25-$50 Price Category?
The 10 bloody gladiators in the $25-$50 monthly ring were:
- Cloudways (with a Digital Ocean Premium 4GB droplet)
- GreenGeeks
- Krystal Hosting
- MDDHosting
- Pressable
- Presslabs
- raidboxes
- SiteGround
- WordPress.com
- WPX
Surprisingly missing from the action here were Kinsta, WP Engine, GoDaddy, Bluehost, Hostgator, A2 and Rocket.net
Here are the 1st to last results he achieved using webpagetest.org:
HOST | BEST GLOBAL AVERAGE TIME IN SECONDS (lower = better) |
---|---|
WPX.net | 0.21 |
Cloudways | 0.27 |
GreenGeeks | 0.28 |
Krystal Hosting | 0.32 |
MDDHosting | 0.51 |
Pressable | 0.75 |
Presslabs | 0.81 |
raidboxes | 0.83 |
SiteGround | 1.07 |
WordPress.com | 1.19 |
The 9/12 locations where WPX won in this category were:
- California, USA
- Salt Lake City, USA
- Frankfurt, Germany
- Singapore
- Mumbai, India
- Tokyo, Japan
- Sydney, Australia
- Brazil
- Dubai, UAE
The 3 slowest performers on global average speed in this category were WordPress.com (last), SiteGround (2nd last) and raidboxes (3rd last).
Kevin’s Conclusion In The $25-$50 Category?
“WPX was the fastest average and fastest in 9/12 locations. Presslabs picked up the other 3 fastest speeds and managed third fastest average. Pressable snuck into second fastest average between those two.” (read more here)
And Kevin’s Overall 2022 Verdict On WPX In This Price Category?
“WPX had the fastest asset response times on the Load Storm test. WPX had the third fastest average response time and fourth fastest p95 in the Static test. WPX had perfect and near perfect uptimes. WPX had the fastest global response times on WPT. WPX had the fastest PHP and WP Bench scores. WPX overall did an amazing job, and the adjustment for accepting P95 scores slightly above 1000ms was added this year was precisely to recognize companies like WPX. A well deserved Top Tier status.”
Finally, What About The $51-$100 Price Category?
Players in the 2022 shootout in this price bracket were:
- Cloudways (competed with a VULTR HF 8Gb)
- DreamHost
- MechanicWeb
- Pressable
- raidboxes
- SaveinCloud
- Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo
- Servebolt
- WPX
Here are the 1st to last results Kevin achieved using webpagetest.org:
HOST | BEST GLOBAL AVERAGE TIME IN SECONDS (lower = better) |
---|---|
WPX.net | 0.21 |
Cloudways | 0.27 |
DreamHost | 0.29 |
MechanicWeb | 0.30 |
Pressable | 0.72 |
Presslabs | 0.73 |
raidboxes | 0.81 |
SaveinCloud | 0.85 |
Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo | 0.85 |
Servebolt | 1.49 |
The 8/12 locations where WPX won in this category were:
- Salt Lake City, USA
- London, UK
- Frankfurt, Germany
- Singapore
- Mumbai, India
- Tokyo, Japan
- Brazil
- Dubai, UAE
The 3 slowest performers on global average speed in this category were Servebolt (last), Scaleforce (2nd last) and SaveinCloud (3rd last).
Kevin’s Conclusion In The $51-$100 Category?
“WPX had the fastest average and picked up 8/12 fastest response times in different locations. Presslabs picked up 2 of the fastest response times with the second fastest average response time. Pressable and Scaleforce picked up the other two fastest response times and were third and fourth average respectively.” (read more here)
And Kevin’s Overall 2022 Verdict On WPX In This Price Category?
“WPX had the fastest asset load times on the Load Storm test. WPX had the third fastest average and p95 in the Static test. WPX Had the fastest WPT average and location scores in 8/12 locales. Overall, WPX had an excellent performance, and the adjustment for accepting P95 scores slightly above 1000ms was added this year was precisely to recognize companies like WPX. Congrats on another Top Tier award.” (read more here)
Final Thoughts?
If you need hosting for small local websites, then most hosts can provide a cheapish, semi-adequate local service for that – probably!
However, if your websites live in niches targeting a global audience, WPX delivers virtually unchallenged speed around the world – 3 out of 3 price category victories in global average speed illustrates our high performance capability, again in 2022.