Results are available for 2024, with new speed test numbers added. A2 Hosting remains our fastest host, with Kinsta jumping to second place for the first time (from fifth place), WP Engine remaining in third place and SiteGround rising from seventh to fourth place.
Note that our tests are based on our own methodology of web research and anecdotal testing. Be sure to do your own due diligence and research, including using test sites beforehand, and request a list of example sites in your industry from each host's customer support service.
| Web hosting | Speed | Starting price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| A2 Hosting | 0.21 seconds | 2.99 per month | Most people - A2 is cheap and fast. |
| Kinsta | 0.23 seconds | 30 dollars per month | A fast-growing company looking to expand on WordPress as well as other platforms. |
| WP engine | 0.25 seconds | 25 dollars per month | Companies that can afford to pay extra for one of the best WordPress hosts. |
| Ground website | 0.27 seconds | 2.99 per month | Those who host 5+ WordPress sites are looking to save money. (Choice #1 in terms of value). |
| Cloudways | 0.32 seconds | 4.95 per month | Those looking for the power of Digital Ocean, Linode, Google Cloud, and other premium providers. |
| HostGator Cloud Service | 0.43 seconds | 5.99 per month | Consumers are looking to save money. |
| InMotion | 0.51 seconds | 6.99 per month | Those who love InMotion. |
In 2024, it's very important that websites load very quickly.
It's not only a (small) ranking factor, it dramatically improves the customer experience - which means more dollars in your pocket.
It's no secret that the fastest web hosting is the best web hosting. So, which hosting should you choose in October 2024?
Google engineers discovered that many Internet users get frustrated when waiting 400 milliseconds for a website to load.
Why do you really need the fastest web hosting?
Boost speed with the fastest web hosting.
High-speed hosting services not only optimize the user experience, but they:
- Have a positive impact on search engine rankings (Google has recognized this)
- Increase the time users spend on the site because users are more comfortable browsing
- is a big factor in the overall speed of your website
- Helps deliver resources
- Makes you more attractive
Okay, that last part was a lie. But the truth is that in about the time it takes to blink, you could lose a visitor to your site. That could mean losing a $250,000 deal, a new donor to your charity, or a new fan.
Don't lose fans because of your lazy speeds.
The engineers also found that if your site is about 250 milliseconds slower than a competitor's site, they are more likely to choose your competitor's site.
Competition fierce.
To cut to the chase, here are some of the fastest web hosting providers globally below.
Various speed studies have placed these seven hosts as faster options for 2024 and beyond:
Average speed: 0.21 seconds
A2 Hosting has staked its reputation on its reputation by trying to be the fastest web hosting company worldwide. It even put this feature at the top of its homepage.
But The important thing to know is that you won't get 20x speed in the Lite plan, you have to choose the Turbo plan (great name) for that:
We ran a GTmetrix speed test with A2 Hosting, using the fairly simple StudioPress Genesis theme, and we were very happy with the results:
Note that we were using A2 Hosting's Turbo plan and turned on the speed and caching tools they provided.
If you want to get more details about their plans, here's what you need to know:
- Shared hosting with CloudLinux: Customers can use the site builder or program their own sites. The first two options include standard speeds. The fastest option is hosting on a Turbo server It features the A2 Optimized Site Accelerator. Once customers outgrow shared hosting, they can upgrade to a dedicated server.
- A2 offers two customized hosting options: Flex for developers and experts and Managed Flex, an easy-to-use path that includes a free cPanel control panel. A2 guarantees 99.9% uptime and blazing speeds.
- Managed and unmanaged VPS hosting: Unmanaged hosting provides customer-tailored packages that can include a Linux operating system and A2's own installer, or managed hosting, which includes software, hardware, network, and security monitoring.
- Cloud hosting: on the SwiftServer platform, which can load pages up to 300 percent faster than standard disk drives.
- Hosting distributors: It has three separate plans, all of which offer resellers an unlimited number of customer accounts.
Here's a summary of their overall hosting plans:
| Description | |||
| Starting from | |||
| Control panel | |||
| storage |
and only A2 shared hosting plans:
| price | |||
| Number of sites | |||
| Databases | |||
| Turbo speeds | |||
| Site Accelerator |
They offer round-the-clock technical support at all levels, and have combined the best of OpenCart, WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla to provide customers with fast page loading speeds.
Visit A2 Hosting and get 66% ->
Average speed: 0.23 seconds
If you're looking for super-fast WordPress and WooCommerce hosting, Kinsta is a brand new alternative to WP Engine.
They are highly focused on creating the best hosting for WordPress users who want managed hosting, secure hosting, super fast hosting, and even better - on the Google Cloud platform.
There's Fast, and then there's Fast Kinsta.
They even said so themselves:
The thing I love about them is how personable they are. Yes, they want to brag a bit, but they back it up with actual testing and education for other site owners.
Insiders are shifting Collectively From other hosts to Kinsta. They are worth a look.
Take a look at our full review of Kinsta for all the juicy details.
Getting Started with Kinsta ->
Average speed: 0.25 seconds
WP Engine was founded on speed. The company originally started as a platform for developers obsessed with speed (and still is). They did their best with WordPress hosting before the idea became mainstream. Since then, many copycat companies have sprung up.
They use their Evercache technology which includes "an optional, fully integrated and managed CDN that serves your static content from data centers around the world, with each byte delivered by the server closest to the requesting browser."
I'll put it this way, if you have a large, complex WordPress site where every second counts - use WP Engine, and you won't be disappointed (get 20% off with this link).
Average speed: 0.27 seconds
SiteGround is perhaps the best overall host for most people.
They combine a deep well of technical knowledge, excellent customer service, and low prices that rival the best.
To make their hosted sites extremely fast, they have implemented a great deal of technologies to make your site faster than a rocket.
How do they do this? There are a few ways:
Custom SuperCacher
SiteGround SuperCacher comes in three tiers, depending on what you need for your site:
- Tier 1: Persistent Cache It creates a copy of static content - such as images, CSS, javascript, and more - and saves it to the server's RAM instead of the hard disk. This makes access much faster.
- Level 2: Dynamic caching is great for dynamic sites like WordPress - which caches HTML generated by PHP code. Instead of generating PHP code every time and making calls, it just points to the saved HTML. All you need to know is that it's better this way.
- Level 3: Memcached It's a very powerful program - it's a technology used by sites like YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, and a host of other huge sites. Instead of searching the database for queries every time, it stores them directly in RAM. So if you have a database-driven site, this is the way you want to go.
Cloudflare's free CDN
With SiteGround hosting, it's integrated with the free CDN Cloudflare. And while Cloudflare CDN starts free anywhere, it's extremely useful to integrate it directly into your host - that means one less thing to do.
SSD drives, not solid state drives
To be fair, many hosts have moved to SSDs, so SiteGround isn't the only one, but keep in mind that it's very fast compared to the "old" way of doing things.
They're not only fast, they're also nice. They are efficient. They are there when you need them. You want to take them home to your mom.
Is SiteGround the slowest host of these seven?
No, and you shouldn't choose based on speed tests alone.
We ran the above speed test for SiteGround on a simple site, running SG SuperCacher and selecting all of its speed settings. Overall, we were very happy with the results. Our A2 Hosting vs SiteGround comparison post shows side-by-side speed comparisons.
Loading speed is important, but it's only one variable among many. SiteGround is one of my favorite hosting companies, so don't let its ranking here put you off.
For example, you can look at all the features of SiteGround and A2 Hosting and compare them to get the full picture, or dive into the full SiteGround review with user ratings.
Check out SiteGround's plans here ->
Average speed: 0.32 seconds
Cloudways is a bit different from the other hosts here.
It's a layer on top of two super-fast and powerful giant hosts:
- Google Cloud
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Digital Ocean
- Linode
- Stackpath
- Volter
Basically, these huge cloud hosting companies are designed for developers - not beginners.
What Cloudways does is help make accessing all of these hosts easy for you, and simplify the process.
It adds layers of value, such as:
- 24/7 expert support
- Managed Backups
- Managed Security
- Advanced Caching
- Cloudways CDN
If you're looking for a good combination of high-speed, scalable hosting and 24/7 support, turn to Cloudways.
For a more in-depth analysis, check out our full review of Cloudways here.
Get 50%+ discount on Cloudways here ->
Average speed: 0.43 seconds
HostGator Cloud not Like the basic HostGator.
It's faster, better, and more powerful - designed for more powerful and growing websites.
Better yet, they don't carry the same price tag as expensive cloud hosting providers.
What we love about these HostGator Cloud plans
- Ultra-low cloud prices as low as $4.95 per month and up
- Free SSL on all plans
- Unlimited number of domains on Baby Cloud and Business Cloud
- As a company with over 8 million domains and 850 employees, you can trust that it's a strong company
Founded in 2002, HostGator has been providing fast service since the beginning. The company has a 99.9% uptime guarantee, responsive customer service, and additional hosting options for WordPress and apps.
If you're looking for super-fast, entry-level cloud hosting, this is the way to go.
Note: HostGator also offers WordPress Cloud hosting - slightly different, but great if you use WordPress.
Take a look at HostGator Cloud ->
Average speed: 0.51 seconds
InMotion is one of the hosts that has been around for a long time, but still delivers great performance.
They have invested in several internet service providers and data exchanges in order to deliver faster speeds no matter where users are located:
one Great demos What they have on the page is the ability to download files from two data centers to see which one is faster - it's cool, try it:
They really surprised us in some of our research, and proved to be very fast and reliable hosts.
Since 2001, InMotion Hosting has been customer-focused, offering data centers in Los Angeles and Virginia Beach - and allowing customers of certain individual packages to choose the data center that works best for their customers' websites.
- InMotion offers three different shared hosting plans with free SSD and a free domain name. Programming is available in several languages, offers Google Apps integration, and secure IMAP email.
- Six dedicated server options offer free cPanel and WHM, free SSD - with faster load times - and 99.99% network uptime. It also offers managed hosting, launch assistance, and an individual administrative setup program that can help optimize your site, speed up your pages, or set up your server.
- VPS hosting includes a free SSD, free domain name, free full cPanel license, and unlimited domains and MySQL databases. InMotion Hosting runs on CentOS 6 Enterprise Class Linux.
- Resellers can choose from three plans, all of which include free SSD, eNom accounts, WHMCS billing software, dedicated IP addresses, full cPanel licenses, transfer and backup.
InMotion support is available around the clock, with Skype chat and support options. They also offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
Want to learn more about InMotion? Check out our full review for more.
Request InMotion discount here ->
Other fast web hosting services worth mentioning
There are plenty of other web hosting services worth considering. There are so many options that it's hard to choose! Here are some noteworthy services that we think are worth considering as well:
- Bluehost - This is a very popular hosting company that has made significant improvements in uptime, speed, and customer service over the years. (Compare it to HostGator here)
- Dreamhost - They fly under the radar these days but are well-supported, affordable hosts that many love
- WPX Hosting - It's a more specialized WordPress hosting service, popular among affiliates - worth a try!
How slow is too slow to load the site?
Fast web hosting is critical, but it's only one piece of the puzzle. You should run a site test and use heat mapping tools to discover how fast users are bouncing. Be sure to consult Google Analytics as well.
According to the NN Group:
"The basic rules of human perception of time provide a framework for understanding the effects of web page delays: People can detect delays of up to 1/10th of a second, so anything that takes longer doesn't seem 'instant'. The Delay for Just one second is enough to interrupt a person's conscious thought process which changes the experience to waiting to catch up with the system, rather than feeling like you're directly controlling the interface. This delay reduces conversion."
This isn't just a resource-saving activity, it's a requirement for customer acquisition, conversion, and retention. If someone else can do it faster, your customers will go there.
The basics of high-speed hosting
It's important to remember that loading speeds may vary significantly based on the hosting plan the sites are using. For example, a shared hosting plan won't always run as fast as a VPS or dedicated server. One of the most compelling options - if you can afford it - is super-fast cloud hosting. There's a lot that goes into your website's loading speed and the hosting part is just one piece of the puzzle.
In addition to your chosen hosting plan and the physical distance between you and the hosting company's server location, the design elements of any hosting plan may also affect the loading speed of your sites. If your site is optimized, it will use less bandwidth and fewer processing units.
Let me repeat: You can have the fastest server on the planet but still have a slow website.
So getting super-fast hosting is just the beginning. There's a lot of work to be done, son.
Optimizing your site can mean compressing and editing images, compressing scripts, including meta descriptions, title and header tags, and adding image titles and file names.
When you choose ultra-fast web hosting, your work has just begun.
Don't just think about speed
When choosing a host, you have to balance speed, performance, and pricing options. I mean, you wouldn't judge a book by its cover, right?
Although more expensive options often include more features, fewer space and bandwidth restrictions, and faster speeds, analyze your needs.
Unlimited domains may be an attractive feature for large companies with a large number of domains; if you're looking to publish a blog and can still get amazing speeds on a single-site shared hosting plan, this may be a better option. Even between shared hosting plans, customers can see different speeds based on features, data center locations, and times of day.
There are other things to check with web hosts, in addition to just speed:
- Money-back guarantee: The best hosts will give you your money back within 30 or 60 days - this greatly enhances trust in the company
- Response time: There is hosting response time and domain name response time - your domain response time may affect speed more than your physical host
- Small vs. large companies: Some hosts, like Rackspace and AWS, are designed for large companies. Others, like SiteGround and A2 Hosting, favor small businesses. Choose wisely. Check out our full list of small businesses here.
- control panel: The control panel on most hosts is called cPanel, and is familiar to many users. Other hosts, such as Kinsta, have created their own control panel - this has its own pros and cons.
- Support team: I honestly think the support team is the number one consideration. You want premium support. SiteGround is the best for this. Check out our list of the best hosts for customer support.
- Email accounts: Do you get email hosting? Do they make it easy? How many accounts can you have? All of these things are important.
- SSD storage: This is the fastest hosted storage, look for it as a distinguishing feature. You want your storage to respond without any delays.
- Disk space: Regarding SSD storage, do you have limited disk space? Unfortunately, some great hosts like SiteGround only offer you 30GB in their popular plans.
- Free SSL certificate: Every site should be on SSL these days, giving you a secure site over https
- Unlimited bandwidth: Many hosts claim this, but then throttle traffic if it gets too high. Check with the host for exact details.
A note on our methodology
If you search online, you'll find many sites that test hosting providers on their own with one-off monitoring tests.
We think this is great, but there are still some missing pieces of the puzzle.
What we've done on our own is to do manual research and collect data in reports across the web about what people see with page load times.
We then aggregate this data to give you the best idea of the speeds you can expect. We hope this is helpful in your decision-making - it should save you a lot of time!
How site speed affects your website and your business
This infographic from WP Engine highlights the importance of speed and how it directly impacts your business.
Other factors when testing web hosting speed
One crucial element to keep in mind when testing the speed of web hosting is other elements:
- How optimized is the site itself? This is perhaps the biggest factor regarding web hosting speed
- Home Wi-Fi Speed
- The speed of your home router
- The speed of your computer
- Are you on a Wi-Fi or cellular network?
- Mobile network strength - 4g vs. 5g
If you're experiencing issues that seem to be unrelated to hosting, test on all of the points above. If your computer is slow, ask a friend to test it on theirs, or go test it on your smartphone. Test the new wifi at Starbucks using Google wifi. Router issues are a little trickier. For example, if you use a cable service like Spectrum Charter, make sure you use one of their pre-approved devices so it doesn't affect your home wifi. A substandard device may slow down speeds and may have nothing to do with your web hosting speeds.
Update history
- July 22, 2024: New hosting speeds have been updated based on recent research. Edited and clarified.
- June 2022: Revised for clarity and grammar. Minor inline edits have been made. Speed details have been double-checked
This release was updated in October 2024 and we will continuously update it as more information is gathered.
Last updated on July 22, 2024 by Joe
