We Challenged Our Page Speed Against 13 Top Web Hosts
We are WordPress designers and developers who wanted a web hosting platform optimized for page speed.
We tried many of the other hosts in the early days and decided on creating our own supersonic hosting server based on our knowledge and experience.
Certainly, our results would appear to vindicate that we know how to optimize for page speed. Read the reviews below.
If you're looking for a fast loading WordPress or Woocommerce driven website you should consider Browserweb . If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
May 2019
| SPEED RANKING | WEB HOST |
|---|---|
| 1. | 1.2s | Browserweb |
| 2. | 1.8s | Siteground |
| 3. | 3.5s | InMotion |
| 4. | 3.8s | iPage |
| 5. | 4.4s | Pressable |
| 6. | 4.7s | BlueHost |
| 7. | 5.1s | Pantheon |
| SPEED RANKING | WEB HOST |
|---|---|
| 8. | 6.6s | Liquidweb |
| 9. | 8.8s | DreamHost |
| 10. | 9.1s | Flywheel |
| 11. | 11.2s | GoDaddy |
| 12. | 12.8s | A2 Hosting |
| 13. | 15.4s | MediaTemple |
| 14. | 19.8s | WPEngine |
Desktop Speed Review Report (May. 2019)
WP Engine
Media Temple
A2 Hosting
GoDaddy
#11 GODADDY.COM
MAY 2019
6.0s with a page grade E. New design, still a depressing speed means it's still a no-go in our book. Download Report
FlyWheel
#10 GETFLYWHEEL.COM
MAY 2019
16.5s with a page grade F. The FlyWheel is still very broken. Download Report
DreamHost
LiquidWeb
Pantheon
BlueHost
Pressable
iPAGE
InMotion
Siteground
Browserweb
#1 BROWSERWEB.ORG
MAY 2019
1.2s with a page grade A. The same position every month, #1. Download ReportSummary of Speed Results for December 2018
Top 8 Hosts Page Speed Review Report (Archives)
GoDaddy
#8 GODADDY.COM
SEPTEMBER 2018
9.6s with a page grade E. SlowDaddy retain the wooden spoon.Download ReportAUGUST 2018
11.4s with a page grade E. It would appear consistency is key for GoDaddy.com.MAY 2018
10.1s is the latest speed with a page speed grade E. Officially last place again, GoDaddy really is SlowDaddy and just can't shake the "wooden spoon" rating in our report.APRIL 2018
9.1s is the latest speed.Maybe that will improve now that Amazon own all of GoDaddy hosting.DECEMBER 2017
From 12.6s in October, down to 8.2 in December, GoDaddy joined the other hosts with social listening and tried to improve their page load times.Unfortunately, WP Engine addressed their 20s+ page speed as well, so GoDaddy slides to the worst rank of them all at number 8 on the charts.OCTOBER 2017
The well known hosting company has been changing it’s image and also now has embraced the fact that around a third of websites are powered by WordPress.They sell you shared hosting with a premium subscription service to manage your WordPress driven website which starts at $80 per month, without the hosting which will set you back a few dollars more too!Pretty damned expensive if you’re asking us – for a page speed of 12.6s, compared to 1.0s for Browserweb.
WP Engine
#7 WPENGINE.COM
SEPTEMBER 2018
7.4s with a page grade E. They remain in 7th.Download Report
AUGUST 2018
10.3s with a page grade E. They remain in 7th.MAY 2018
9.7s with a page grade E. WPEngine reclaims 7th spot as it battles for the "wooden spoon" position every time we check with rivals GoDaddy. Both these premium web hosts are the owners of the slowest loading websites on the planet today.APRIL 2018
10.9s is the new time for the new redesigned WPEngine website. Officially last place in this April report, knocking off GoDaddy who replaced WPEngine in our December report.It appears WPEngine wishes to be the slowest host as it reclaims #8 position in April, the slowest host in our report.DECEMBER 2017
From 21.0s in October, down to 6.8 in December, Austin based web host WP Engine joined the other hosts with social listening and tried to improve their page load times.That takes them from bottom of the charts but they only climb one spot to #7 in their refurbished 4-cylinder engine.No nitrogen can be found around their Texas garage that’s for sure.OCTOBER 2017
Austin, we have a problem! Texas based WP Engine needs a new one, completely refurbished and supercharged.We’re in Texas too, down the road in Houston and yet you’d think that WP Engine was renting it’s web servers from a farmer in Cuba. Seriously dudes and dudettes, this is an embarrassing performance figure.At over 20 seconds, maybe this is where Hubspot hosts, as we caught them out for a very slow website in our blog post HERE. (but even they were under 20s).
FlyWheel
#6 GETFLYWHEEL.COM
SEPTEMBER 2018
5.2s with a page grade E. FlyWheel drops 2 places this month due to competitor page speed improvements.Download Report
AUGUST 2018
4.2s with a page grade F. Jumps above Pressable to slide into 4th with this 4 second page speed test result.APRIL 2018
Well, it goes to show, never be premature with the congratulations as we did last month. FlyWheel just slipped from #2 to #5 with a page speed of 4.8s. Oops.
APRIL 2018
Congrats to FlyWheel coming in at 3.3s.
That speed wouldn't make the grade with our #3SECONDS or less or it's absolutely free, guarantee. Keep trying!
DECEMBER 2017
From 7.8s in October, down to 3.5s in December, Flywheel was also a big time mover and joined the other hosts with social listening and tried to improve their page load times.
OCTOBER 2017
A new player on the block with a “Beautiful” feeling about WordPress Website Hosting, the Fly has fallen off the Wheel here, seriously denting the page speed.At a page speed time of 7.8s this is an expensive website to host your clients. Pretty UX and UI may attract the web agencies to sign up, but the page load time is not pretty.
BlueHost
#5 BLUEHOST.COM
SEPTEMBER 2018
4.4s with a page grade D. Bluehost is sticking at #5 for another month.Download ReportAUGUST 2018
5.5s with a page grade D. Up one position this month, #5 for BlueHost.MAY 2018
Bluehost slides back to 5.2s and a page speed grade D in our May report.
APRIL 2018
Another small improvement, Bluehost cracks the 5s blues and creeps in at 4.8s this month.
DECEMBER 2017
From 6.4s in October, down a little to 5.2s in December, Bluehost is still feeling the blues and no sign of high fives this side of 2020.
OCTOBER 2017
They must have the blues over at Bluehost.Another well known web hosting company is relying on their reputation but the proof is in the load times and it’s a shocker.
Pressable
#4 PRESSABLE.COM
SEPTEMBER 2018
They've been working on speed at Pressable, it's clocking a much improved 2.7s. They jump 2 places this month, with a failing page grade D.Download Report
AUGUST 2018
5.9s with a page grade E. Getting slower with age.MAY 2018
Pressable has tried to improve it's speed after the new design, it's at 4.3s but still ranks as a page speed grade E.
APRIL 2018
Oh dear, Pressable upgraded it's design and lost a whole lot of speed from 2.7s, now loading in 6.0s and an "E" Grade, that's put them lower on the April 2018 report.
DECEMBER 2017
From 3.6s in October, down to 2.7s in December, Pressable hits the high 2 second range, where 3 hosts find themselves as they cannot crack the 1 second sound barrier like Browserweb.
OCTOBER 2017
Pressable Managed WordPress prices has a standard set of features at time of posting this article, starts from $20.83 p/m with a restriction of 60,000 shared page views and a sluggish 3.6s page load time may press your patience.
DreamHost
#3 DREAMHOST.COM
SEPTEMBER 2018
2.6s with a page grade E. Holds the Bronze medal for another month.Download ReportAUGUST 2018
2.7s with a page grade E. Cracks the #3Seconds and looks to have a new design helping it's page speed. However, it's running a non-WordPress website to get it under the magic number.MAY 2018
3.8s load time and a page speed grade C for this "award winning host".
APRIL 2018
Another host with a redesign, this award-winning host (according to them) has fallen to 4.4s load time in April 2018.
DECEMBER 2017
From 3.5s in October, down to 2.s in December, Dreamhost shaved a second off their time, but lost #2 position by a tenth of a second – as they also cannot crack the 1 second sound barrier like Browserweb.
OCTOBER 2017
DreamPress is the Managed WordPress offering from Dreamhost, starting from $19.95 per month it’s competing with a couple of other players in the pricing gamification.They come in #2 to Browserweb, but are a nearly 3x slower than Browserweb and haven’t cracked the 3s benchmark. We think our $25 p/m, fully-loaded and truly blazing fast servers are worth the extra few bucks.
SiteGround
#2 SITEGROUND.COM
SEPTEMBER 2018
2.2s with a page grade C. Maintains it's runner-up medal again this month.Download ReportAUGUST 2018
2.4s with a page grade C. Also cracks the #3Seconds. However, like DreamHost, it's running a non-WordPress website to get it under the magic number.MAY 2018
Sitting at 3.1s load time and a low "C" Grade, they are actually the best of the bunch as far as catching Browserweb. They've a long ways to go yet though to catch up to our 1.5s load time.
APRIL 2018
Another faller, Siteground was making strides. Curiously, they have a "Passion" brick image on the home page.
With a tweak in it's design, they've lost the passion for speed. Sitting at 3.5s load time and barely a "C" Grade, it's another average hosting report in April.
DECEMBER 2017
From 4.0s in October, down to 2.4s in December, Siteground improves to #2 in the charts.
They are still digging for the one second solution as they also cannot crack the 1 second sound barrier like Browserweb.
OCTOBER 2017
Siteground has been around a long time and is a well respected web host.
They don’t offer Managed WordPress, they have shared WordPress hosting.
The website raves about “Always the Hottest Speed Technologies” but at 4s load, they’ve dropped the ball as the claims don’t backup their own website load times, which, we assume, is hosted on their own servers.
Browserweb
#1 BROWSERWEB
So there you have it, we’ve got faster page speed load times than those 7 other managed WordPress Web Hosting companies.
SEPTEMBER 2018
1.5s with a page grade A. We use what we sell, WordPress CMS. We're the only host on this list that has an A-Rating and in the 1s page speed range, consistently.AUGUST 2018
1.7s with a page grade A. We use what we sell, WordPress CMS. We're the only host on this list that has an A-Rating and in the 1s page speed range, consistently.MAY 2018
We came in at 1.5s for a fully loaded web page. The key takeaway here is that we're just consistent. If you look at the others, they are constantly inconsistent with their page speed. We test every page 3x to ensure our results are fair and a true representation of the facts. We're the only web host that is consistent in the page speed report, month-on-month, year on year. We will offer your website(s) the same. Sign up today and enjoy supersonic page load times fused with great customer service.
APRIL 2018
In December, we added a lot more load on the design elements, with interactive content and more, but the difference of 0.3s to provide this extra depth of offerings to keep blazing fast page load times was well worth it.
DECEMBER 2017
In December, we added a lot more load on the design elements, with interactive content and more, but the difference of 0.3s to provide this extra depth of offerings to keep blazing fast page load times was well worth it.
OCTOBER 2017
Browserweb recorded 1.0s page speed in October.
We're #1, so we tested more Hosts (archives)
A2 Hosting
A2HOSTING.COM
SEPTEMBER 2018
They've blown the engine at A2Hosting.9.6s sees them slide to the worst result of the new hosts we've tested and are now even on a par with SlowDaddy.That's gotta hurt.Download Report
AUGUST 2018
The slogan for A2 is "Our Speed, Your Success. Well, with a 3.6s result and a page grade B, there's work to do in the ninja superpower department. A2's own website is powered by CodeIgniter, not WordPress CMS.
Media Temple
MEDIATEMPLE.NET
SEPTEMBER 2018
5.3s with a page grade D. Loses a position this month and well short of 3s or less.Download Report
AUGUST 2018
4.4s with a page grade D. Doesn't use WordPress CMS for it's own website.
Pantheon
PANTHEON.IO
SEPTEMBER 2018
We recorded 4.5s with a page grade D this month.They've accepted the challenge and nearly halved their 9s load time from last month.Unfortunately, it's still not an agile load time in this page speed report for Pantheon.Download Report
AUGUST 2018
We recorded 8.0s with a page grade D - ehmmm, not very much "...digital speed and agility" as claimed on the home page of Pantheon.Known as a Drupal CMS Host, they run Drupal on their own website.Unfortunately, it's not an agile nor respectable load time in this page speed report for Pantheon.
iPage
IPAGE.COM
SEPTEMBER 2018
4.1s with a page grade C. Cheap hosting at slow speeds appears to be the offer of the day.Download Report
AUGUST 2018
3.1s with a page grade C. Doesn't use WordPress as a CMS.
LiquidWeb
LIQUIDWEB.COM
SEPTEMBER 2018
3.4s with a page grade D. The very expensive hosts are also making strides to fix their broken page speed barometer. This month they also nearly shave 50% off last month's 6s load times.With the new sales pitch from Liquid, promoting a Woocommerce product that's starting at $250+ per month, they'll need to up their game a whole lot more in our opinion. Cracking #3SECONDS would be a start.Download Report
AUGUST 2018
6.5s with a page grade D. Very expensive hosting for the discerning buyer that must like slow page speeds bundled into the costs.
InMotion Hosting
INMOTIONHOSTING.COM
SEPTEMBER 2018
3.1s with a page grade C. InMotion needs more warm-up time at the gym. They are still unable to break the #3SECONDS page speed again this month.Download Report
AUGUST 2018
3.4s with a page grade B. Doesn't use WordPress CMS for it's own website.
Summary
We added 6 more web hosts in August 2018 who offer WordPress hosting.
The results are in and none of these web hosts cracked the #3SECONDS page speed.
We'll just have to admit, we're #1 and have been for nearly the whole year since we started recording our results.
#SayHello - sign up and enjoy supersonic page speeds with Browserweb and our world-famous concierge support.
What You Should Look for When Testing Page Speed
The test location closest to your target audience provides the most accurate representation of your page load.
Don’t compare these tools equally and wonder why your scores differ from tool to tool.
Onload time may misrepresent the true load time of your page.
Real browsers provide a better indication of your website’s performance.
It’s important to understand how each tool works before relying on them for any sort of data or results.
MOBILE LEAGUE REPORTS
DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX.
Which Page Speed Testing tool should you rely upon or use?
It depends. We feel that the use cases for each tool can be broken down into the following categories:
Quick Checks
GTmetrix, Pingdom Tools, and PageSpeed Insights
Consistency/Historical Tracking
GTmetrix and WebPagetest
In-depth Analysis
GTmetrix and WebPagetest
SEO Check
PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and Pingdom Tools
Mobile Devices
WebPagetest, GTmetrix, and PageSpeed Insights
Location Dependent
WebPagetest, GTmetrix, and Pingdom Tools
Advanced Options
WebPagetest and GTmetrix
Pingdom defaults to Onload Time only
This is why you may see Pingdom results loading faster than GTmetrix and/or WebPagetest.
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Fully Loaded Time vs Onload Time
Fully Loaded Time
The point after the Onload event fires and there has been no network activity for 2 seconds. This ensures more consistency with tests.
Possible issues with using this event: This event fires only when a page completely stops loading content, including ads and below the fold elements. Your site might have loaded fast above the fold and be usable, however since the analysis is now waiting for the entire site to stop loading data, your reported Page Load Time might be longer.
Onload Time
When the processing of the page is complete and all the resources on the page (images, CSS, etc.) have finished downloading. The browser will trigger window.onload when this occurs.
Issues with using this event: Some elements of the page load may not make it in before this event fires – like JavaScript based image carousels – causing inconsistent page load times and inaccurate screenshots. It may also report faster page load times than actual.
Conclusion
Onload time may misrepresent the true load time
Due to network variances or the way the page was designed to load (eg. asynchronous loading), resources loaded after the browser triggered window.Onload may not make it into reports.
The result is a report that indicates the page loaded faster than it actually did. This means that the while the tool received a “page finished loading” trigger at onload, the actual user is still experiencing resources being downloaded.
Our preferred testing platform, GTmetrix now uses fully loaded time, which waits for 2 seconds of network inactivity before stopping the test.
The Other Platforms
GTmetrix and WebPagetest allow you to switch between Fully Loaded and Onload Time.
Pingdom defaults to Onload Time only.
This is why you may see Pingdom results loading faster than GTmetrix and/or WebPagetest.
Scores and Recommendations
Recommendations will differ between tools
Each of these tools assess websites against their own set of recommendations.
Most of them stem from Google’s original open source PageSpeed library, and have likely been customized or modified.
GTmetrix in particular has modified PageSpeed and YSlow rules to assess websites based on what they feel are the most important metrics.
Conclusion
Don’t compare these tools equally and wonder why your scores differ from tool to tool
While they’re all likely based on the original, open-sourced Google PageSpeed library, some key differences should be pointed out.
After Google made general scoring algorithm/recommendation changes years ago, they have not updated the open-sourced library since.
The PageSpeed Insights online tool as a whole seems to contain a new set of rules (which isn’t open-source).
Don’t compare these tools equally and wonder why your scores differ from tool to tool; they all use different recommendation sets.
This is why you’ll see differing rules from each service, and why GTMextrix deemed it necessary to update their own PageSpeed rule set.
