How to Compare WordPress Hosts Without Trusting the Review Sites
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If you publish your own host comparison, the benchmark numbers must be yours. Run the test below on each host with the same site, record the figures, and state the date and configuration. Delete this box once your data is in.
Hosting reviews are the most affiliate-saturated category in this industry. The same six hosts appear in the same order across hundreds of sites, and the order correlates with commission rather than performance. The fix is to measure for yourself, which is less work than it sounds.
The short version
- Renewal price matters more than launch price.
- Test with your own site, not a default install.
- Measure TTFB from where your readers are.
- Support response time is testable before you buy.
The afternoon test
1. Take a copy of your real site
A default WordPress install tells you nothing. Your plugins and your database are the test.
2. Deploy it on each candidate
Most hosts offer a trial or a refund window. Use a temporary hostname.
3. Measure TTFB from your audience’s region
Cached and uncached, several times across a day. Averages matter more than any single reading.
4. Run the same Core Web Vitals test on each
Same page, same conditions.
5. Open a support ticket on each
Ask a real question. Record how long the reply takes and whether it answers.
6. Read the terms
Renewal pricing, backup retention, refund window, migration help, resource limits.
# repeat several times, from a location near your readers
for i in $(seq 1 10); do
curl -o /dev/null -s -w "%{time_starttransfer}\n" https://candidate-host.example.com/
sleep 5
doneWhat to record
| Measure | Why |
|---|---|
| TTFB cached | How fast a typical page is served |
| TTFB uncached | How the server handles real PHP work |
| LCP on a representative page | The visitor-facing number |
| Support first response | What happens when something breaks |
| Renewal price, year 2 | The real cost |
| Backup retention and restore | Whether you can recover yourself |
| Migration assistance | Whether included or charged |
Contract terms that matter more than speed
- Renewal pricing. Frequently several times the intro rate. Calculate three years.
- Refund window. Thirty days is common and makes testing low-risk.
- Backup retention and self-service restore. Backups you cannot restore yourself are not useful at 2am.
- Resource limits in the acceptable use policy. Not the feature list — the policy.
- PHP version control. You should be able to change it yourself.
- Staging. Included or extra.
Watch out
Be sceptical of any comparison where every host is excellent and one is simply the most excellent. Real comparisons have a host that is bad at something, because all of them are.
What to ignore
- Uptime percentages. Everyone claims 99.9%, and the measurement methodology is never stated.
- “Optimised for WordPress”. Means nothing specific.
- Speed scores from the host’s own test page, which is not a real site.
- Awards and badges, which are usually self-issued or paid.
Common questions
How long should I test for?
An afternoon of measurement plus a week of ordinary use on the refund window. Performance under real traffic is the part a single test cannot show.
Is managed hosting worth the premium?
If it removes work you would otherwise do — caching, backups, staging, updates — then often yes. If you were going to configure those anyway, less so.
What about the cheapest tier?
Fine for a low-traffic content site with good caching. The constraint appears with uncacheable traffic or spikes.
Sumit
Writes everything on TechMozz.