We are back with our WordPress Hosting Benchmarks for the year 2025.
Our WordPress Hosting Benchmarks reports let you analyze and benchmark the most popular WordPress hosting providers in the industry.
What sets us apart is that we buy our own hosting accounts across popular hosting providers, set identical sites, and put them under 24/7, 365 days of performance monitoring. Thus, we bring the most valuable data, which is not available anywhere else on the internet.
This benchmark report is generated based on 365 days of data obtained from January 1, 2024 to December 31, 2024. We have measured all the crucial metrics like TTFB (Time to First Byte), Uptime, load handling, hardware performance, and global TTFB scores.
For those looking for a quick recommendation, check our best WordPress hosting roundup, where we picked top hosts, or continue reading for the complete performance breakdown of all popular WordPress hosting providers.
HTML Table View
Hosting
Type
Plan
Price (monthly)
Test Site Datacenter Location
CDN
Benchmark Start Date
A2 Hosting
Shared
Startup
$2.99
Michigan (US East Coast)
No
September 1, 2020
Bluehost
Shared
WordPress Basic Hosting
$2.95
Provo, Utah
No
November 16, 2022
ChemiCloud
Shared
Starter
$2.95
Dallas
No
August 25, 2020
Cloudways
Managed Cloud
DigitalOcean Standard
$11
New York
No
August 25, 2020
DreamPress
Managed WordPress
DreamPress
$16.95
Ashburn Virginia
No
January, 30, 2021
FastComet
Shared
Starter
$2.95
Newark, USA
No
August 25, 2020
GreenGeeks
Shared
Lite
$2.95
Chicago, US
No
September 1, 2020
HostGator
Shared
Hatchling
$3.75
Provo, Utah
No
November 16, 2022
Hostinger
Shared
Single
$2.99
North Carolina
No
November 30, 2020
Kinsta
Managed WordPress
Starter
$35
Iowa, Google Cloud
Cloudflare Enterprise
September 1, 2020
NameHero
Shared
Starter Cloud
$8.95
Wyoming
No
April 1, 2023
Nexcess
Managed WordPress
Spark
$21
Southfield, Michigan
Cloudflare
May 1, 2021
Rocket
Managed WordPress
Starter
$30
Ashburn
Cloudflare Enterprise
October 12, 2020
SiteGround
Shared
Startup
$2.99
Iowa
No
August 26, 2020
Templ
Managed WordPress
Micro
$15
North Virginia, Google Cloud
No
February 3, 2021
WP Engine
Managed WordPress
Startup
$35
North America
Cloudflare
September 1, 2020
WPX Hosting
Managed WordPress
Business
$24.99
Chicago
WPX XDN
March 26, 2021
Hostingstep Benchmark Methodology:
Test Environment:
WordPress Version 6.7.1
WordPress Twenty Twenty-Four theme
Active Plugins: Akismet, Contact Form 7, and Rank Math
Caching:
Default server-side caching on Managed WordPress.
WP Fastest Cache plugin is used to enable caching on shared hosting.
PHP version: 8.1
Testing Parameters: TTFB, Uptime, Load Test, WPBenchmarks, Global TTFB.
Benchmark Test 1 – TTFB
Time to First Byte (TTFB) is the crucial metric to evaluate the performance of any hosting company.
We use the Pingdom synthetic monitoring tool, configured to ping the test site at 60-second intervals from 22 geographically distributed test locations across the USA. The TTFB scores are collected from all locations and then averaged to bring the final TTFB score.
In numbers, we do 43,800 individual tests a month and a whopping 52,56,00 tests a year to write this annual WordPress benchmarks post. The test parameters:
Test Frequency: 60-second interval
Monitoring Locations: 22 points across the USA
Timeout threshold: 30 seconds
Test Type: HTTPS
SSL/TLS: Enabled
Test Duration: 365 days
Total Tests/Month: 43,800
Annual Tests: 525,600
Metrics Collected: Min/Max/Average TTFB
Results:
Hosting
Average TTFB
Rocket
335 ms
Templ.io
357 ms
WPX
365 ms
GreenGeeks
395 ms
A2 Hosting
397 ms
Cloudways
405 ms
FastComet
427 ms
ChemiCloud
435 ms
DreamPress
437 ms
Hostinger
443 ms
NameHero
452 ms
Nexcess
454 ms
WP Engine
462 ms
Kinsta
466 ms
Bluehost
472 ms
SiteGround
510 ms
HostGator
790 ms
Based on our benchmark report, Rocket Hosting maintains its top TTFB performer position with 335ms average TTFB. Templ hosting (357ms) and WPX (365ms) offer similar performance with sub-400ms TTFB scores.
Among shared hosting companies, GreenGeeks (395ms) and A2 Hosting (397ms) secure the top spots. HostGator, like last few years, takes the last spot with 790ms TTFB.
The data shows a ~455ms gap between top and bottom performing hosts, indicating how the hosting choices are critical for business websites.
Based on the obtained TTFB data (335ms – 790ms), we grouped the companies by 50ms increments.
The Uptime benchmark is done through the same Pingdom synthetic monitoring tool, which pings the test sites from 22 locations. There is a 30-second threshold time, and if the site is unresponsive, downtime is calculated.
Each hosting provider offers an uptime SLA and below which they are obliged to compensate the users. So, it’s best recommended to use a proper uptime tracking for your website. The test parameters are:
Test Frequency: 60-second interval
Monitoring Locations: 22 points across the USA
Timeout threshold: 30 seconds
Test Type: HTTPS
SSL/TSL: Enabled
Test Duration: 365 days
Total Tests/Month: 43,800
Annual Tests: 525,600
Metrics measured: Total Downtime/outages/Average Uptime.
Results:
Hosting
Average Uptime
Downtime
Total Outages
Templ.io
100%
0
0
Rocket.net
99.99%
1 min
1
WPX
99.99%
2 mins
2
Kinsta
99.99%
3 mins
1
DreamPress
99.99%
35 mins
4
WP Engine
99.99%
42 mins
4
Cloudways
99.99%
1 hour 2 minutes
5
Nexcess
99.99%
1 hour 5 minutes
9
Hostinger
99.99%
1 hour 15 minutes
26
SiteGround
99.99%
1 hour 18 minutes
23
HostGator
99.98%
1 hour 54 minutes
20
Bluehost
99.97%
2 hours 21 minutes
34
NameHero
99.97%
2 hours 31 minutes
55
A2 Hosting
99.97%
2 hours 47 minutes
23
GreenGeeks
99.96%
3 hours 37 minutes
39
ChemiCloud
99.92%
6 hours 55 minutes
45
FastComet
99.84%
13 hours 56 mins
133
The Managed WordPress hosts (Templ, Rocket, Kinsta, WP Engine, Cloudways, Nexcess, etc) generally offer better uptime compared to shared hosts.
Services like A2 Hosting and GreenGeeks offer excellent speed but lag in uptime, though the uptime range is within their SLA. We have tested their starter plans alone. Since they are superior in speed, we recommend trying their mid or top tier plans to get better reliability similar to what we get in Managed WordPress hosts.
Our data reveals some interesting uptime patterns. We have nine hosting services recorded 99.99% uptime. But if you look closely, Rocket.net hosting with 1 minute of downtime and SiteGround hosting with 1 hour 18 minutes of downtime are calculated as 99.99% uptime. So, we included the total downtime and outage data in the chart, giving you a clearer view for in-depth analysis of a company.
It’s evident from the report that the site owners should cautiously choose a reliable hosting provider because 99.99% uptime feels good on paper, but reality is different.
Since we use the same Pingdom tool for measuring TTFB and uptime, refer to the screenshots in the TTFB section to view the uptime data.
The load test is an advanced benchmark for sites that receive constant traffic throughout the day. The test is done to know how the hosting handles the constant traffic in the fastest time.
We send 100 constant visitors to the site using the Loader.io tool to measure the average response time. A lesser than response time indicates the server handles the load exceptionally faster. The test parameters are:
Virtual users: 0-100 concurrent visitors
Duration: 1 minute
Test Type: Maintain Client Load
Method: GET
Protocol: HTTPS
Measured: Response time (Average / Min / Max)
Results:
Host
Average Response Time (Lower is better)
WP Engine
19ms
GreenGeeks
26ms
Kinsta
27ms
WPX
41ms
A2 Hosting
44ms
Nexcess
60ms
Templ
68ms
FastComet
79ms
Cloudways
128ms
Bluehost
131ms
NameHero *
141ms
SiteGround
147ms
HostGator *
152ms
DreamPress
223ms
Hostinger
256ms
ChemiCloud *
1068mS
Rocket.net
Incomplete
For the first time, WP Engine secured the top position in load testing. This is due to their aggressive upgrades to their tech stacks in the last few years. Rocket hosting scored the top spot in the last few years, but their security settings block our testing, so unfortunately, we don’t have data to prove their load handling capabilities.
Looking at the results of GreenGeeks, it achieved elite performance with no CDN involved, whereas other Elite performers, WP Engine and Kinsta, are tested with CDN edge caching. GreenGeeks truly deserves applause here for the value they bring at an affordable price.
The strong performance group is led by most managed WordPress hosts, and A2 Hosting is the sole shared hosting provider with a 44ms response time.
The average performance group comprises mostly shared hosting services. Hosts like NameHero, HostGator and ChemiCloud received 4xx/5xx errors either due to poor server handling or their security blocks our testing tool.
The WPBenchmark plugin is installed on the test sites, and the hardware performance is measured. It does a series of tests like CPU, Memory, file system and database performance and gives a score out of 10. The higher the score, the better the host is at handling huge workloads at the backend. The parameters are:
Server TestsConducted:
CPU and Memory
Filesystem
Database
Network
Scoring System: Scale: 0-10
Results:
Like the last few years, Kinsta got the best hardware performance. The company claims to offer the fastest virtual machines on Google Cloud, and it’s evident from the fact that no other company has ever beaten Kinsta’s score in the WPBenchmark test. We recommend Kinsta for resource-hungry WordPress sites.
SiteGround and Hostinger secure the next spots despite their average speed performance in the above tests.
The Global TTFB test is for sites that get traffic across the globe. The SpeedVitals tools ping the site from 40 international locations, the scores are averaged to measure the overall global TTFB score.
This test helps to identify the regional performance bottlenecks and helps us to choose the right regional CDN or hosting provider. The testing parameters are:
Locations: 40 international points
Americas: 15 points
Europe: 15 points
Asia-Pacific: 10 points
Protocol: HTTPS
Analysis: Average and regional Global TTFB score.
Results:
Rocket hosting, powered by Cloudflare Enterprise, stays in the top position with a 177ms score. Templ hosting, powered by Google Cloud CDN, gets the second spot with a 264ms score. WP Engine secured third with a 298ms global TTFB score. All the top spots are secured by companies that use CDN edge caching, which demonstrates the need for CDN edge caching for the fastest TTFB performance.
Bluehost is in an interesting spot, thanks to the addition of Cloudflare CDN with Argo routing, it secured strong performance. Cloudways leads the non-CDN hosts with a 444ms score. SiteGround, which comes with its own CDN, got the worst performing TTFB like last year.
Benchmark Reports of individual Hosting Companies [Ordered by their Value Score]
WP Engine
8.3
★★★★★
Overall Score
Performance Metrics
TTFB462ms
Uptime99.99%
Load Test19ms
Global TTFB298ms
WPBench5.9/10
Key Strengths:
Exceptional global TTFB performance across all regions.
Elite load handling with fastest response time.
Improved and strong uptime over the years.
Areas for Improvement:
Limited server resource as seen on WPBench score.
Best Suited For:
Every WordPress website with a budget of over $30/month. Enterprise WordPress sites requiring fast TTFB and strong long handling capacity can utilize the service of WP Engine.
Value Assessment:
WP Engine lagged behind its competitors for the last few years. This year, they made a comeback with the launch of Global CDN edge content delivery. The TTFB and load handling performance is improved greatly with better results than its competitors. The uptime, which was also lagging last year, has improved. WP Engine gets a BUY rating for its improvements.
Consistently securing the #1 host in offering the fastest TTFB.
Near perfect uptime with minimal outages.
Excellent WPBench hardware server scores.
Areas for improvement:
WPBench score can be improved.
Best Suited For:
All kinds of WordPress websites that require top notch performance, especially for sites with global traffic.
Value Assessment:
I say this again, Rocket is the best choice of hosting with integrated Cloudflare Enterprise solutions. It offers the best TTFB both in US and global regions. Their uptime is near perfect with nothing to worry about. We couldn’t test their load handling capabilities due to security limitations.
Consistent TTFB, Uptime and load handling performance results year over year.
Areas for Improvement:
Moderate hardware resource allocation.
Limited brand recognition.
Best Suited For:
WordPress sites that require elite performance without enterprise pricing.
Value Assessment:
Templ.io is the only Managed WordPress hosting powered by complete Google Tech stacks (Google Cloud + CDN + DNS). Your sites will be hosted just like how Google services like Gmail, Youtube, etc are hosted on the internet. Their TTFB, uptime and load handling performance are superior to most branded managed WordPress hosting providers. Their WPBench scores are somewhat lower but it doesn’t affect the performance at any cost.
High traffic WordPress websites that require best load handling with infrastructure to support backend workloads.
Value Assessment:
Kinsta’s WPBench score is unbeaten in the last five years. Their claim of offering the fastest Virtual machines on Google Cloud is true to the core. It is the best hosting choice for resource hungry WordPress sites. Their load handling is next to none, securing the elite tier handling all the concurrent traffic loads in the fastest way possible. However, their TTFB is average compared to its competitors. Their global TTFB is not fast either despite the presence of edge caching and Cloudflare CDN.
Unconsistent global TTFB response time across regions.
Best Suited For:
Any type of WordPress site that requires a combination of speed across all segments.
Value Assessment:
WPX delivers competitive TTFB, uptime and load handling performance. With consistent performer for years, WPX is a subtle choice in the affordable Managed WordPress hosting segment.
Excellent initial server response time (TTFB) over the years.
Elite load handling score, maintaining its consistency over years.
Impressive global TTFB performance for a shared host without CDN support.
Areas for Improvement:
Moderate hardware server score.
Room for better uptime
Best Suited For:
Small to medium WordPress websites that require strong performance on every front be it fast TTFB or load handling. It suits well for sites not only focused on USA visitors but can serve faster for global visitors also.
Value Assessment:
GreenGeeks is simply underrated and one of the greatest shared hosting services. It is the only shared host that has consistently top performing since 2020. The uptime is slightly concerning but it’s well within the guaranteed SLA and you might also try their Pro or Premium plan for better reliability. With the perfect combination of price and performance, GreenGeeks is an excellent choice and easily our top BUY rated hosting provider.
Consistent TTFB and load handling performance over the years.
Decent global TTFB performance.
Areas for Improvement:
Their uptime is within their guaranteed SLA but it could be improved.
The WPBench scores are limited, indicating you need to choose higher plans for intensive workloads.
Best Suited For:
Small to medium sized WordPress sites that receive up to 100 concurrent traffic loads, primarily serving North American visitors.
Value Assessment:
A2 Hosting delivers what they are proud of, i.e., speed. The starter plan itself is capable of handling a good number of concurrent traffic, which makes it the best value for money choice for website owners.
Year over year, it continues to offer exceptional performance in TTFB.
Highly reliable with minimal downtime, although it has increased this year.
Rock solid load handling capability.
It offers fast global TTFB without the need of CDN.
Areas for Improvement:
Low WPBenchmark score due to limited server resources per plan.
Best Suited for:
Individuals, Agencies, developers and businesses who are looking to upgrade from shared hosting services.
Value Assessment:
Cloudways bridges the gap between the shared hosting and Managed hosting services. The company heavily worked on the speed part which is evident from the consistent performance over the years. Be it TTFB, Uptime or load handling, their performance is always top notch compared to its competitors. We recommend Cloudways as a strong choice for all types of businesses that fall into their pricing segment ($11/month).
Generous server resources as found in our WPBench scores.
Areas for improvement:
Both their TTFB (Global TTFB) lags behind their competitors.
Best Suited For:
Agencies and resource intensive sites that require reliable hosting with generous server resources.
Value Assessment:
Nexcess is good at offering a decent service with good TTFB, Uptime and load handling scores. Their WPBench also looks good indicating an overall value for money hosting service. The only concern is their TTFB should be improved, though they are not bad, improving it will make them a great choice for any type of WordPress sites.
Uptime is reliable now, used to have the highest downtimes (99.82%) in the previous year.
Decent TTFB performance.
Decent WPBenchmark hardware scores.
Areas for improvement:
Their load handling capacity is poor despite premium pricing.
High global TTFB score making them not a great choice for sites with global traffic.
Best Suited For:
Small WordPress sites targeting North American audiences with no concurrent traffic handling requirements.
Value Assessment:
DreamPress scores decently in most performance tests but doesn’t have the solid foundation to reach the top spot. There are many shared hosting services that perform better than DreamPress at half the price. They are also not competing with other Managed WordPress hosting providers in terms of speed.
Excellent WPBench score indicates high hardware server resource allocation.
Highest uptime with minimal downtime recorded.
Strong TTFB score.
Areas for improvement:
Load handling needs optimization.
Best Suited For:
Any kind of small, medium to growing websites needing strong server resources at budget pricing.
Value Assessment:
Hostinger offers exceptional TTFB and uptime performance. Their load test results are poor, though we need to appreciate that it handles all the user loads without any errors. They offer one of the highest inode limits which is typically limited only to high tier plans. The combination of strong TTFB, Uptime and WPBench scores makes them a great choice for most websites from personal blogs to business websites.
Poor TTFB score in spite of Google Cloud infrastructure.
Slowest Global TTFB performance
Average load test capability.
Best Suited For:
Small to Medium sized WordPress websites which required high hardware resources.
Value Assessment:
SiteGround continues to disappoint in most performance metrics. While their Uptime is good, rest metrics specifically the TTFB is below average. The load test fails to handle the load faster in both CDN ON and OFF conditions.
The new integrated Cloudflare CDN with Argo Routing does an excellent job of improving TTFB performance.
It offers a decent load handling capability.
Their uptime is within their SLA but could be improved.
The global TTFB performance is balanced across continents.
Areas for Improvement:
The WPBench score is low, and needs improvement.
Best Suited For:
Small WordPress websites and blogs with US as well as global visitors.
Value Assessment:
The addition of Cloudflare CDN with Argo routing is a game changer for Bluehost. It has greatly improved the speed across the globe. Their pricing page says, the Basic plan (the starter plan) can handle 100 concurrent users which is verified by our testing. What I really like about their Cloudflare integration is that they are available at one-click from the dashboard. What I really liked about their cloudflare integration is that they are available at one-click in their dashboard. This is an unlikely story with other shared hosting providers where we need to dig deep into cPanel to activate Cloudflare with many technical complexity. Overall, Bluehost deserves a BUY rating in our 2025 benchmarks thanks to their improved TTFB and load handling capabilities.
Strong load handling capacity, maintaining its excellence since last year.
Good TTFB score in North American regions.
Areas for Improvement:
The uptime is the poorest of all with 133 outages in a year.
Low WPBench score.
Decent global TTFB score.
Best Suited For:
Local business websites without strict uptime requirements.
Value Assessment:
FastComet offers a mixed value in our tests. While the load handling is great, they have a poor uptime record. They launched a new low tier starter plan with lesser resources and considering the reliability issues in Essential plan, where our test site is hosted, the new starter plan is likely (or unlikely) to have reliability issues. Last year, we recommended a buy rating but we are downgrading them as there are better choices available for users.
Decent initial response time TTFB performance in the USA region.
Decent uptime score.
Areas for improvement:
Load handling is not perfect with multiple 4xx/5xx errors.
Limited WPBench test scores.
Global TTFB performance is poor.
Best Suited For:
Basic WordPress websites focused on USA traffic.
Value Assessment:
NameHero struggles to achieve top tier in any of the performance benchmarks. While their TTFB and uptime is somewhat acceptable, the load handling is not good.
Consistent TTFB and load handling performance over the years.
Decent global TTFB performance.
Areas for Improvement:
Their uptime is within their guaranteed SLA but it could be improved.
The WPBench scores are limited, indicating you need to choose higher plans for intensive workloads.
Best Suited For:
Small to medium sized WordPress sites that receive up to 100 concurrent traffic loads, primarily serving North American visitors.
Value Assessment:
A2 Hosting delivers what they are proud of, i.e., speed. The starter plan itself is capable of handling a good number of concurrent traffic, which makes it the best value for money choice for website owners.
Year over year, it continues to offer exceptional performance in TTFB.
Highly reliable with minimal downtime, although it has increased this year.
Rock solid load handling capability.
It offers fast global TTFB without the need of CDN.
Areas for Improvement:
Low WPBenchmark score due to limited server resources per plan.
Best Suited for:
Individuals, Agencies, developers and businesses who are looking to upgrade from shared hosting services.
Value Assessment:
Cloudways bridges the gap between the shared hosting and Managed hosting services. The company heavily worked on the speed part which is evident from the consistent performance over the years. Be it TTFB, Uptime or load handling, their performance is always top notch compared to its competitors. We recommend Cloudways as a strong choice for all types of businesses that fall into their pricing segment ($11/month).
Generous server resources as found in our WPBench scores.
Areas for improvement:
Both their TTFB (Global TTFB) lags behind their competitors.
Best Suited For:
Agencies and resource intensive sites that require reliable hosting with generous server resources.
Value Assessment:
Nexcess is good at offering a decent service with good TTFB, Uptime and load handling scores. Their WPBench also looks good indicating an overall value for money hosting service. The only concern is their TTFB should be improved, though they are not bad, improving it will make them a great choice for any type of WordPress sites.
There are no improvements on uptime. The 99.92% uptime is below their guaranteed SLA of 99.99%.
WPBench scores are low.
Poor load handling capabilities with 4xx/5xx errors.
Best Suited For:
Simple WordPress site with low to moderate traffic focused on USA visitors. Not recommended for sites getting concurrent visitors.
Value Assessment:
ChemiCloud looks strong on paper but the obtained uptime is below their guaranteed SLA of 99.99%. Hence, we don’t recommend them for real business sites. Maybe their top tier plans are super faster but we don’t have data to prove it. Despite the presence of strong tech stacks, the uptime and load handling is not up to the mark and it’s advised to look at alternatives that offer 2x better performance for the same cost.
Great improvement in Uptime range compared to the last five years.
Areas for Improvement:
Slowest TTFB among all the tested hosts.
Load handling is not perfect with server errors.
Poor global TTFB performance across regions.
Limited WPBenchmark server scores.
Best Suited For:
Basic WordPress websites with no performance requirements, mostly suitable for local business sites.
Value Assessment:
HostGator has been consistently ranking for bad records. Their TTFB, uptime, load handling, global TTFB, WPBench everything seems to be slow and poor. Though their recent uptime score is something to rejoice, there is nothing good for us to recommend them when better choices are available.
Mohan Raj, founder of Hostingstep.com is passionate about WordPress and specializes in server management and speed optimization. With experience across top hosting providers, he launched Hostingstep.com to deliver honest, data-backed hosting reviews, helping website owners focus on growing their business instead of troubleshooting websites.
Kiran, we are testing Namecheap and will add them in next year’s benchmark as we don’t want to benchmark a company based on few months of data. But as you asked my thoughts, I can say NameCheap performance is below average. They might be competitive in terms of pricing, but their performance doesn’t quite match up.
What are your thoughts on NameCheap hosting?
Kiran, we are testing Namecheap and will add them in next year’s benchmark as we don’t want to benchmark a company based on few months of data. But as you asked my thoughts, I can say NameCheap performance is below average. They might be competitive in terms of pricing, but their performance doesn’t quite match up.