

Managed WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks - andreyvit
http://reviewsignal.com/blog/2014/03/26/managed-wordpress-hosting-showdown-performance-benchmarks/

======
timdorr
Oh hey, it's my old company ASO on there! I haven't followed Doug and the team
much since I sold it, but good to know it's still a contender and the support
levels are still as high quality as I left it.

Did you have a chance to test on one of their business accounts?
[http://asmallorange.com/hosting/business/](http://asmallorange.com/hosting/business/)
It's like a standard shared account, but not oversold and therefore able to
better scale.

~~~
ohashi
This was tested on a VPS ($25 one) using their custom LEMP WordPress stack.

------
josephjrobison
Good to see SiteGround keeps up, I've found their offering very compelling and
signed up for them. Support does seem good so far, and I think they can
compete on cost because they're mostly based out of Bulgaria from what I can
tell. Their highest WordPress plan tops out at $15...so that's half of WP
Engine's starting plan.

------
frade33
I am amazed noone had mentined Dreampress $20/month (includes two VPS files +
mysql and uses varinsh cache) which they claim is equal to $500 wordpress.com
VIP. I am using it, but I never had the privilege so far to hit more than 100
concurrent users.

~~~
ohashi
They are on the list for the next round of testing.

~~~
lelandriordan
Please do Flywheel next time too

~~~
ohashi
They are on the list too! Pantheon and Media Temple as well.

------
mikeytown2
I'm curious how pantheon would have done in this test as it is the new kid on
the block.
[https://www.getpantheon.com/wordpress](https://www.getpantheon.com/wordpress)

~~~
ohashi
author here. If/when I get around to doing an update of these tests there are
a lot of companies missing (flywheel, mediatemple, dreamhost, etc). Pantheon
added it while I was working on this, so I didn't even get a chance to
consider them for this go. I will definitely keep them in mind though.

~~~
nptime
Could you please at least update this version of the article with a link to
the demo page that you blitz'd? Or, at least one public link to a
webpagetest.org result that shows the number of requests, grades and total
amount of data downloaded per page requested?

This is a great writeup and a real gem among a sea of junk hosting reviews out
there, but I am having a hard time couching these results against my current
service because blitz.io, and webpagetest.org results obviously vary to a HUGE
degree depending the site / page tested and how it has been optimized.

My regular testing includes webpagetest.org and blitz.io as well, so I just
need a little more of a frame of reference to decide whether or not I want to
use one of those coupon codes and make a switch. Thanks!

~~~
ohashi
Let's see if this works.

WebPageTest.org – Dulles,VA Result URL WebPageTest.org – Miami, FL Result URL
WebPageTest.org – Denver, CO Result URL WebPageTest.org –Los Angeles, CA
Result URL 1.894s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_6C_J3P/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_6C_J3P/)
2.035s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_DQ_HF4/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_DQ_HF4/)
2.381s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_66_H6X/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_66_H6X/)
1.648s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_JY_GRT/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_JY_GRT/)
0.850s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140304_FV_6XQ/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140304_FV_6XQ/)
0.961s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140304_RG_6Z9/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140304_RG_6Z9/)
1.056s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140304_MH_6ZH/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140304_MH_6ZH/)
0.665s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140304_RN_70Y/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140304_RN_70Y/)
1.245s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_XW_J0Q/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_XW_J0Q/)
0.950s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_KG_HW9/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_KG_HW9/)
1.419s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_N8_J39/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_N8_J39/)
0.924s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_Z1_J7G/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_Z1_J7G/)
0.940s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_QR_JT7/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_QR_JT7/)
1.208s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_XH_JJ0/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_XH_JJ0/)
1.229s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_ER_JE6/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_ER_JE6/)
0.671s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_DW_JB9/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_DW_JB9/)
0.642s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_0K_JYE/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_0K_JYE/)
1.174s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_CB_K2X/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_CB_K2X/)
1.721s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_1Q_K61/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_1Q_K61/)
0.981s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_A8_KNH/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_A8_KNH/)
1.073s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_NR_M5G/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_NR_M5G/)
1.327s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_RM_M1H/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_RM_M1H/)
1.682s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_5P_KVQ/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_5P_KVQ/)
1.353s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_ED_KPJ/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_ED_KPJ/)
0.732s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_C4_M93/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_C4_M93/)
0.725s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_1W_MGX/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_1W_MGX/)
1.216s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_9Q_MKK/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_9Q_MKK/)

0.812s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_X5_NH5/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_X5_NH5/)
1.235s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_RX_NJ1/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_RX_NJ1/)
1.060s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_ND_NP4/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_ND_NP4/)
1.080s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_C1_NV3/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140217_C1_NV3/)
0.924s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140218_91_HS4/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140218_91_HS4/)
1.083s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140218_MA_HSG/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140218_MA_HSG/)
1.460s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140218_B3_HTE/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140218_B3_HTE/)
0.748s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140218_VB_HW8/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140218_VB_HW8/)
0.616s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140219_EE_RAE/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140219_EE_RAE/)
1.021s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140219_CV_S2J/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140219_CV_S2J/)
1.516s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140219_HH_SKQ/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140219_HH_SKQ/)
1.116s
[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140219_28_SV6/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140219_28_SV6/)

EDIT: nope. That's was supposed to be a table of the webpagetest.org results
:/ its 3am here and I need to get some sleep and be awake again in a few
hours. I will have to get back to you on a nicer formatted version.

~~~
nptime
Thanks. That's actually more than enough to help me understand and compare.
For completeness you may want to mention in your original review that you used
a default wordpress install for the tests which is ~250-500kB downloaded and
listed as "Bytes In" in a webpagetest.org result. Maybe you did and I missed
it.

I started my tests with a default install too, but found that the actual sites
I deal with are in the 1-2MB range so I imported "dummy content" I found
somewhere to get more representative data and test different stacks of my own
creation.

I decided to go with a $40/mo un-managed VPS 6 months ago partly because
managed would have been hundreds of dollars more per month and partly because
I wanted to learn how to do it myself. After approx 6mo of testing and
optimizing various stacks with similar results to these managed hosts I have
to say they represent a tremendous value. Configuration management, back ups,
maintenance, security and disaster recovery of a high performance stack is a
lot of work and I am not sure if I want to keep doing it.

That said, I could probably start my own managed hosting company that would
compete well at this point!

~~~
ohashi
I mentioned it was the default install but maybe that wasn't clear enough. I
changed them all to 2014 theme too to give some parity. Real sites get heavier
and heavier. When I load tests later they were on more realistic sites with
some popular plugins enabled and dummy content. It's hard to make a
'representative' site though. Each install I've worked with has it's own set
of plugins and feature-creep, it's hard to benchmark something like that and
say it scales across everything.

It definitely is a lot of work managing your own sites and these managed
providers certainly fit a niche. You wouldn't be the first to jump in and
start offering it yourself. Pressable has a bunch of code shared on GitHub if
you were serious about it too.

If you ever are interested in writing about your experience optimizing WP, I
was thinking of doing an article like that as well. Maybe you could do a guest
post? kevin at reviewsignal is my email if you're interested.

------
bhartzer
I'd like to see this test run again... but with a lot more WP hosts than were
originally included in the test.

------
bsirkia
It totally blows my mind that Wordpress powers (or claims to power) 19% of the
web. I had never used it until this year (after using other CMSs like
SquareSpace and Statamic) and wanted to blow my brains out. I really wonder
how the CMS landscape will look in five years.

~~~
mpclark
I hear people say stuff like this a lot. I've been using WordPress for years
and find it really, really good -- not hard to get into, infinitely
customisable, well supported, always improving, well-written plugins for every
function that a reasonable number of people requires etc etc.

Is it just because it doesn't use the latest methods or languages or
something? Is there really more to this than simple techno-snobbery?

FWIW I think the answer to your question is dead simple -- WordPress will
still be the CMS leader in five years, running something rather greater than
20% of the web. You can't beat the entry price...

~~~
aranjedeath
The major issue I've had with wp is the speed. I don't know if it's a php
problem or a wp problem, but running wp on shit-tier commodity hardware
results in a complete inability for your site to be
{hn'd/slashdotted/dugg/whatever} due to the ~500ms page generation times (that
only increase with any plugins at all). The caching plugins mostly resolve
this, but still not well enough to be accessible during a wave of pageviews.

It seems like unless you're willing to pay for managed wp hosting (or fancy
hardware), you can't expect more than 10 pageviews/s to be handled. This makes
me sad.

~~~
ohashi
You can up the performance pretty significantly with caching at various
levels. My experience was the plugins don't do as much as something like
putting nginx in front. [http://reviewsignal.com/blog/2013/08/29/reverse-
proxy-and-ca...](http://reviewsignal.com/blog/2013/08/29/reverse-proxy-and-
cache-server-with-nginx/) what I put in front of it, handles reddit/hn/digg
whatever just fine as far as I can tell.

Caching somewhere above WordPress seems to do wonders, things like Memcache,
Varnish, etc.

Also, some of the companies I was comparing are charging <$10/month and
outperforming some of the bigger brand names like WPEngine (SiteGround and
GoDaddy for instance). I suspect if they gain traction with their products,
they could push the price down on entry level managed wordpress hosting.

