Fastest Wordpress Hosting Test: Cheap A2 Hosting Vs Vultr HF (live side by side)

Summary

In this video, the speaker compares the performance of four WordPress hosting options—HostGator, A2 Hosting (Startup and Turbo), and Vulture HF (via Cloudways)—on a resource-heavy website. Through detailed speed tests, the video highlights Vulture HF as the fastest, with A2 Hosting Turbo also performing well. HostGator lags behind, especially with its slow TTFB and higher load times. The video explains the technical details behind the testing process, including memory limits and caching configurations, offering practical insights for anyone looking to optimize their WordPress hosting for speed and performance.

Takeaways

• 😀 Testing different WordPress hosting options on a real, heavy website (not a lightweight demo theme) to assess their impact on speed.
• 😀 The website tested is a 2.5GB site with multiple scripts and tracking codes, making it a good representation of a typical heavy WordPress site.
• 😀 The test compares four hosting options: Hostgator Shared, A2 Hosting Startup, A2 Hosting Turbo, and Vultr HF on Cloudways.
• 😀 The performance test measures how fast each host loads the website, including the full content, with emphasis on 'contentful paint' time.
• 😀 Vultr HF was the fastest to load the site, followed closely by A2 Hosting Turbo, with Hostgator being the slowest by a significant margin.
• 😀 Hostgator’s load time was around 8 seconds, which is much slower than the other options, highlighting the importance of a fast server response.
• 😀 A2 Hosting's Startup plan performed significantly better than Hostgator but was slower than the Turbo plan and Vultr HF.
• 😀 The key performance metric for slow loading times in Hostgator was its slow Time to First Byte (TTFB), which averaged 2.5 seconds.
• 😀 To ensure a fair comparison, the test was run with no caching plugins or CDNs enabled, focusing solely on the performance of the hosts.
• 😀 A2 Hosting’s Turbo plan offers more optimized performance, with a physical memory usage cap that helps to maintain speed even with multiple websites.
• 😀 Cloudways (Vultr HF) offers excellent performance at a reasonable price point, with options for Redis caching to further improve speed.

Q & A

What is the primary focus of this WordPress hosting comparison?

The primary focus of this comparison is to test the impact of different hosting services on the load speed of a real-world, heavy WordPress website, specifically one with tracking scripts, call tracking numbers, and a mobile click-to-call feature.

Why is the website being tested considered 'heavy' and not a lightweight demo site?

The website is considered 'heavy' because it contains various elements like user interaction scripts (Hotjar), tracking pixels (Facebook and Google Analytics), and call tracking numbers, making it much more complex and slower to load compared to a lightweight demo site with minimal content.

Which hosting solutions were compared in this test?

The hosting solutions compared in this test were HostGator (shared hosting), A2 Hosting (Startup and Turbo plans), and Vultr HF (cloud hosting).

Which hosting option performed the best in terms of load time?

Vultr HF performed the best in terms of load time, achieving full content load in around 3 seconds, significantly faster than HostGator and A2 Hosting.

How did A2 Hosting's Turbo plan compare to the other options?

A2 Hosting's Turbo plan performed very well, loading content in about 4 seconds. It was slightly slower than Vultr HF but still much faster than HostGator, with minimal delays in loading elements like phone numbers and call buttons.

What is 'TTFB' and why is it important?

TTFB (Time to First Byte) refers to the time it takes for the server to respond with the first byte of information when a user makes a request to load a webpage. A fast TTFB is crucial for overall website performance, and Google's recommendation is under 200ms. HostGator's TTFB was found to be much slower at 2.5 seconds, which negatively impacted its performance.

How did HostGator perform in terms of load time compared to the other hosts?

HostGator performed the slowest among the three hosts, with full content loading in about 7-8 seconds, which was significantly slower than A2 Hosting and Vultr HF.

What impact did caching and CDN have on the test results?

To ensure an accurate comparison of host performance, caching plugins were disabled and no CDN was used in the test. This focused the test solely on the performance of the hosting services themselves, rather than any external speed enhancements from caching or CDN services.

What does 'Redis caching' do, and why was it enabled for Cloudways (Vultr HF)?

Redis caching is a server-side caching mechanism that helps speed up website performance by reducing database load. It was enabled on the Vultr HF server through Cloudways to slightly improve performance, although the effect was minimal and not something users would notice with the naked eye.

Why might A2 Hosting's Turbo plan be beneficial for users with multiple websites?

A2 Hosting's Turbo plan is beneficial for users who manage multiple websites because it allows for unlimited websites on the same account, while also providing faster load times due to its memory and resource management features, such as a 2GB memory cap, which ensures better overall performance even on shared servers.