WordPress Hosting [Spreadsheet] Reviews

Yo, I’m Tom! I help sites find high-performance hosting with faster CPUs, more resources, and scalability. My research & testing shows smaller hosts often outperform popular, heavily marketed companies.

Tom dupuis

Cyber Monday Deals

ChemiCloud

MechanicWeb

coming soon

Scala Hosting

Spreadsheets

Best Hosting

65 hosting plans compared based on performance specs, resource limits in TOS & AUP pages, and common TrustPilot complaints. Extremely lucrative industry with lots of marketing.

Best CDNs

Cloudflare and QUIC.cloud are current leaders for WordPress. Cloudflare Enterprise speeds up WooCommerce with faster dynamic routing (some hosts integrate it better than others).

Best Cache Plugins

FlyingPress (on Nginx/Apache servers) and LiteSpeed Cache (on LiteSpeed servers) are the current leaders which optimize core web vitals better than their alternatives with more features.

High-Performance Hosting

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Tab 2 consdffdsfsdfsddasfdfastent.

ChemiCloud

Affordable LiteSpeed hosting with fast 3.8 GHz CPUs, more CPU + RAM, and no restrictive CPU limits. 4.9/5 star TrustPilot rating with a sub-100ms TTFB.

Scala Hosting

Customizable VPS with faster 4 GHz CPUs, OpenLiteSpeed, and dedicated CPU/RAM. SPanel is robust + lightweight and saves money on several VPS licenses.

Vultr High Frequency

Launch a Vultr High Frequency server on OpenLiteSpeed or Nginx on the control panel of your choice with better price + performance than Cloudways.

COMING SOON

Rocket.net

WooCommerce-optimized with a superior version of Cloudflare Enterprise, Object Cache Pro on “Business” plan, and averages a 100ms global TTFB (what I use).

MechanicWeb

5.7 GHz AMD Ryzen 9950X servers, DDR5 RAM, PCIE 5.0 NVMe SSDs, and LiteSpeed. Unpopular due to their (much) lower paying affiliate program.

coming soon

POPULAR HOSTING

Tab 2 content.

Tab 2 content.

SiteGround

Their “glowing reviews” are heavily manipulated and their cache plugin/CDN are inferior to others. Overpriced renewals and previous TTFB/DNS issues.

Hostinger

Scams/fake reviews (check Reddit). Based out of Lithuania with lots of hidden limits, poor support, and common issues related to their DNS and email.

GoDaddy

I hate seeing people getting taken advantage of by their upsells & overpriced services. It’s likely just the start of your problems, so run while you can.

Bluehost

Mainly promoted by “how to start a blog” affiliates who target noobs that don’t know better. Old infrastructure and pays WP to be “recommended.”

HostGator

Owned by the same company as Bluehost (Newfold Digital) with nearly identical problems related to CPU usage, backups, refunds, and warnings on BBB.

Coming soon

WP Engine

Charges more for “managed” but doesn’t proactively monitor sites. Low limits on bandwidth, visits, and storage force you to constantly upgrade (expensive).

COMING SOON

Kinsta

Similar issues as WP Engine with additional limits on PHP workers. Add-ons are absurd and show you how limited their “base hosting plans” really are.

Elementor Cloud

Extremely slow, way too minimal, and you should get your hosting from an actual hosting company – not your page builder/domain registrar.

COMING SOON

WPX

Not the fastest host like they claim. <400ms target TTFB, shared hosting, downtimes, and no redundancy system caused a worldwide outage.

CDNs

QUIC.cloud

LiteSpeed’s CDN is often top 3 on CDN Performance Checker with native dynamic caching, page/image optimizations, and HTTP/3. Use the standard plan.

Cloudflare

Massive network of 330 PoPs and one of the fastest at 321 Tbps. Set up manually (not through your host) to access more features in the dashboard.

Cloudflare Enterprise

WooCommerce/dynamic sites greatly benefit from Argo Smart Routing, priority routing, load balancing, and bot mitigation. Only some hosts use it properly.

COMING SOON

FlyingCDN

Solid integration of Cloudflare Enterprise and convenient if you’re using FlyingPress and want the benefits without switching hosts to Rocket.net.

COMING SOON

RocketCDN

Uses BunnyCDN, but adds no benefit compared to setting up BunnyCDN directly (other than the extra convenience). Doesn’t specify bandwidth limits either.

SiteGround CDN

Very limited optimizations and security features without smart routing. SiteGround’s DNS was also blocked by Google, causing 2M+ domains to get deindexed.

Optimization Plugins

FlyingPress

#1 in core web vitals according to the Chrome UX Report which collects performance data from real users. Leading the way with better features & optimizations.

LiteSpeed Cache

Cache plugin for LiteSpeed servers. Learn to configure the settings and set up QUIC.cloud (or Cloudflare full page caching) with object cache, ideally Redis.

Perfmatters

When using FlyingPress or LiteSpeed Cache, you mainly want this for the script manager to disable plugins on specific pages/posts (reducing CSS/JS).

Database Cleaner

Cleans up the database junk cache plugins can’t: delete unused plugin tables, detect plugin autoloads, and repair corrupted or damaged tables.

coming soon

WP Rocket

Poor job optimizing LCP, images, and third-party code compared to FlyingPress. Also can’t remove bloat or lazy load HTML. Slow to release features.

SiteGround Optimizer

Not a viable alternative due to lacking features, compatibility issues, and 4/5 star rating. You need 3 optimization plugins on SG for better results (not ideal).

NitroPack

Delivers a stripped-down version of your website to manipulate scores, but falls behind FlyingPress even with its manipulation techniques.

COMING SOON

W3 Total Cache

I have a soft spot for this plugin since this guide is how my blog got popular (645+ comments)! But since FlyingPress/LSC came along, it’s not the best option :/

Full List

Overkilled list of 50+ speed plugins. Which ones you need (or don’t need) largely depend on which hosting/cache plugin you use, so choose both wisely!

Core Web Vitals

LCP

Learn the 4 sub-parts of LCP and how optimizing TTFB (and above the fold content) can improve scores. The core web vital people struggle with most.

CLS

Stop things from shifting on your website which is often fixed with CSS/font settings, adding dimensions, delaying JS, and preloading local fonts.

TBT

Blocking time is usually from JavaScript added by plugins, themes, and third-party code (including jQuery). Remove it from the source or optimize it.

TTFB

Test your global TTFB in KeyCDN’s Performance Test or SpeedVitals. A good host and CDN (with full page caching) can solve most TTFB problems.

Third-Party Code

Host fonts/Gravatars locally, then delay JavaScript for most other third-party domains (as long as their JavaScript loads below the fold, try delaying it).

Image Optimization

Optimize LCP, mobile, and background images. Image CDNs generally do a better job compared to plugins, and they also don’t use server resources.

Page Builder Optimization

Speed Up Elementor

Enable performance settings, remove wp-block-library, and exclude Elementor files when removing unused CSS/delaying JavaScript in your cache plugin.

Speed Up Divi

Similar to Elementor’s tutorial only specific to Divi. However, both page builders add extra CSS/JS – especially when you add extra page builder plugins.

GeneratePress

Why I used GeneratePress + GenerateBlocks to redesign my site and how it fixed several design/speed issues I’ve been having (cheaper than Kadence).

tom dupuis

Why I Started OMM

Because for over a decade, I’ve constantly seen people choose garbage hosting and get taken advantage of because of marketing.

I started challenging “how to start a blog” affiliates in 2015 and haven’t stopped. All I care about is giving people factual, sourced reviews so they can make better decisions in a $100 billion hosting industry (the profits are insane… no wonder there’s so much noise).

Outside of hosting, I’ve written several popular WordPress speed guides, including my first popular tutorial on W3 Total Cache in 2013 (a big reason my blog blew up in the first place). Times have changed!

When I’m not working, I’m usually hiking, exercising (boxing and yoga), letting loose at Red Rocks concerts, or traveling with my crew.

Tom dupuis fall