Contents
Nexcess Vs Kinsta – Introduction
Nexcess is a fully managed WordPress hosting platform . The service comes with brilliant speed, security, and scalability. The host has optimized managed hosting solutions for all types of customers.Â
Kinsta, on the other hand, is a managed WordPress hosting platform that uses cutting-edge technology. The service runs on the Google Cloud Platform and is extremely fast and reliable. Further, Kinsta provides customers with a lot of plans to choose from.
It is surely not an easy job to choose between such two great hosting services. It is important to understand all the aspects of the two services before you can make a decision. I studied the two services closely by considering all the crucial aspects and performing some important tests for better clarity.
Nexcess Vs. Kinsta: Performance
1. Server Response Time
Performance is undoubtedly an essential aspect in hosting, and I started the performance check by testing the server response time of my sites hosted with the two services.
My Nexcess site had an average server response time of 406ms, while my Kinsta site recorded an average server response time of 492ms. Hence, Nexcess has a slightly better server response time than Kinsta.
2. Uptime
Next, it was important to check how far the services are reliable in terms of uptime.
I tested my test sites, my Nexcess site had an uptime of 99.99%, and my Kinsta site had an uptime of 99.99%.
Hence, both Nexcess and Kinsta have reliable uptime.Â
3. Load Testing
I have also performed load testing on my sites to have a clearer picture of the performance of the two services.
My Nexcess site had 320ms while My Kinsta site recorded 47ms in the test.
Kinsta is good here but Nexcess is not bad, took below 100 ms to handle load and still good to use.
4. Core Web Vitals
My Nexcess site had a ‘Largest Content Paint’ of 360ms, a ‘Total Blocking Time’ of 0 s, and a ‘Cumulative Layout Shift’ of 0, while my Kinsta site recorded a Largest Contentful Paint of 677ms, Total Blocking Time of 0 s, and Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.
5. Global TTFB
The global TTFB test is an excellent test to check hosting services’ performance across multiple global server locations. This test can be beneficial for any website that receives traffic from multiple global locations. As a part of this test, I pinged my sites from 35 global locations.Â
My Nexcess site maintained an average TTFB of 597ms. My Kinsta site had an better TTFB of 497ms.Â
Nexcess Vs. Kinsta: Features
1. Data Center Locations
When you have a website to host, you must try to host your website from the closest server location of your target audience. This is why you need to know the data center locations of a hosting platform before choosing it. As far as the data center locations of Nexcess go, the host has 8 data center locations across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.
Kinsta, on the other hand, has 35 data center locations. Hence, you can see that Kinsta has more data center locations than Nexcess.Â
2. Control Panel
You must pay close attention to the control panel since you will have to manage your hosting account through the control panel. Nexcess comes with an easy-to-use custom control panel called the Client Portal. The control panel gives you an excellent one-point of control to manage Email, MySQL, htaccess, Firewall rules, Cron jobs, Backups, Statistics, and more.
Kinsta also has a custom control panel called the Kinsta dashboard. The control panel is intuitive and offers you access to phpMyAdmin, redirects, logs, SFTP, backups, and more to manage your account. Further, the Kinsta dashboard offers detailed site analytics.
3. CDN
CDNs are widely used these days for faster speed of delivering content to target audiences, and most of the top hosting companies offer CDN services for free on their plans. Nexcess comes with its in-built CDN called the Edge CDN, and it is available in all the plans.
The CDN uses its wide global network to distribute content from the closest servers. Besides, it has an intelligent caching mechanism wherein it caches the most frequently accessed files on priority for a blazing fast loading.
Kinsta, on the other hand, uses Cloudflare Edge Caching CDN and offers it for free on all the plans.
4. Staging
Nexcess offers 1-Click Staging on all plans with a straightforward process of cloning the live site, testing changes, and deploying final changes to the live site.Â
Kinsta has a pretty straightforward staging feature as well, and the host has the feature for free on all the plans. Creating a staging site is exceptionally simple in Kinsta and pushing the final changes to the live site is also equally simple.
5. Backups
I was pretty impressed by the backup feature in Nexcess. The host offers free automated daily backups and stores them on the off-server for 30 days.Â
Kinsta also has a very reliable and free backup system in place, characterized by automated daily backups. You can easily restore any copy of a backup anytime you want.
6. Security
Nexcess has a very straightforward approach towards security, and apart from constant server monitoring, the host offers iThemes Security Pro for free on all plans.Â
Kinsta also comes with extremely tight security features comprising resource isolation, DDoS protection, and Hardware Firewalls. Besides, the service is covered by Google’s high-security network.
Nexcess Vs Kinsta Support
A reliable support service can quickly get you out of technical problems and save you a lot of time. Nexcess offers fast and reliable support through 24×7 live chat and phone backed by dedicated and experienced executives.
Kinsta support is also undoubtedly reliable, and the support team has done a splendid job in assisting the customers with their technical issues through 24×7 live chat and email.
Conclusion
I conducted thorough testing and analysis of the various aspects of Nexcess and Kinsta to provide you with an accurate picture of their performance, features, and pricing.
While Kinsta outperformed Nexcess in terms of speed, Nexcess still provides good performance and offers a feature-rich hosting with ample server resources. It’s worth noting that Nexcess is an ideal hosting option for agencies, while Kinsta is suitable for any type of business. However, Kinsta’s pricing may not be affordable for some agencies.
