The Ideal LiteSpeed Cache Settings With QUIC.cloud (Or Cloudflare), Object Cache, And Optimizing For Core Web Vitals (2024)

In this guide, we’re configuring LiteSpeed Cache.

This includes setting up object cache (Redis is preferred) and a CDN (QUIC.cloud or Cloudflare). The table below shows why LiteSpeed Cache optimizes web vitals better than WP Rocket + SG Optimizer. But there are 5 key things it doesn’t do: preload LCP images, preload fonts, disable plugins on specific pages, remove bloat, and resize images for mobile. For even better results, I’ll show you how to address each of these using Permatters or various free/lightweight plugins.

• ON – enable.
• OFF – disable.
• TEST / DEPENDS – test your results, or depends on other settings.
• CONSUME RESOURCES –  indicates the setting can consume high server resources and lead to 5xx errors + CPU overages, especially on shared hosting or less powerful servers.

 

1. Dashboard

LiteSpeed’s Dashboard shows the status of optimized images, CDN usage, CSS, etc. Measuring your PageSpeed scores here is more accurate than third-party browser tools such as GTmetrix.

 

2. General

• Automatically Upgrade: Off – it’s safer to update plugins manually.
• Domain Key: request a domain key, add it here, and link to QUIC.cloud.
• Guest Mode: Depends – significantly improves load time for first time visitors while improving PageSpeed scores, but consumes resources/inodes when “mobile cache” is enabled (required to be on for guest mode) and “WebP replacement.” Also doesn’t work with Cloudflare’s APO. You can read more about Guest Mode and Guest Optimization here.
• Guest Optimization: Depends – only use if Guest Mode is on. Page/image optimizations will be aggressive for first time visitors which can further improve load times and scores.
• Server IP: click “Check my public IP from DoAPI.us,” then paste your server’s IP address.
• Notifications: On – turn off if you don’t want LiteSpeed’s notifications (like new releases).

 

3. Presets

You should really go through this tutorial and tweak settings yourself. But if you’re stuck on using a preset, I would use Extreme, but disable CSS/JS combine and test asynchronous CSS. LiteSpeed Cache saves your previous settings under “History” in case something goes wrong.

You can download the settings I use in this tutorial (via Google Drive) then upload them in Presets → Import/Export. I would test it on a staging site and still go through them, including:

• Request a domain key
• Add your server IP
• Localization files
• HTML lazy load selectors
• Ensure above the fold images are excluded from lazy load
• Use “Tuning” settings to exclude files if they break your site
• Setup your CDN
• Setup object cache
• Clean your database

 

4. Cache

Cache

• Enable Cache: On – test your site in uptrends.com and look for x-litespeed-cache hit.
• Cache Logged-in Users: Off – only enable if you run a membership website (or similar) and have users logging in that need their own cache, otherwise it consumes resources.
• Cache Commenters: Off – creates a separate cache for people who leave a comment which is still pending, but also consumes resources if your blog gets lots of comments.
• Cache Rest API: On – used in many themes, plugins, and the WordPress Block Editor.
• Cache Login Page: On – saves server resources since the login page is a common target. Don’t change the login URL since LiteSpeed + QUIC.cloud optimize the default login page.
• Cache favicon.ico: On – caches favicon (the small logo image shown in the browser tab).
• Cache PHP Resources: On – caches static PHP files (i.e. CSS + JS) loaded by your theme. Only disable if you have dynamic CSS + JavaScript loaded in PHP, which you likely don’t.
• Cache Mobile: Depends – only enable when using Guest Mode and Guest Optimization, other settings (UCSS, CCSS, AMP), or use mobile-specific content. Consumes resources.
• Cache URIs: not necessary for most websites since the “cache logged-in users” setting handles private cached URIs, and no pages on your site generally need to be force cached.
• Drop Query String: marketing campaigns and tracking URLs often contain query strings where caching is ignored. The default list is usually fine, but if you have others, add them.

TTL

• Cache TTL – defaults are usually fine. Cache TTL is the time LiteSpeed Cache keeps a cached file before it expires and a new one is created. A shorter TTL can be used if you update your site frequently to guarantee users will see the new cached version, but will consume resources. A longer TTL saves resources, but the cache isn’t refreshed as often.

Purge

• Purge All On Upgrade: On – purges cache when WordPress core/themes/plugins are upgraded to make sure your site displays properly. LiteSpeed says to leave this on as well.
• Auto Purge Rules For Publish/Update: default settings are OK. Whenever you publish a post, your blogroll and other content may need to update, so they should also be purged.
• Serve Stale: Off – when turned on, the most recently purged (stale) copy of the page is served if the new cached version isn’t generated yet (enabling this consumes resources).
• Scheduled Purge URLs: no need to add URLs here unless you need pages purged at a specific time (during low traffic), in which case you would also set scheduled purge time.
• Purge All Hooks: default settings are fine. When specific hooks are run, it will purge all. LiteSpeed says adding comment_post may be good to purge all when a comment is made.

Excludes

Nothing to do here for most sites. You’re already controlling the cache in other LiteSpeed Cache settings, so there’s usually no reason to exclude things from the cache unless you have a reason.

ESI

• Enable ESI: Off – controls how specific elements on your dynamic pages are cached, whether it be publicly, privately, with a custom TTL, etc. Complicates things (LiteSpeed says it’s easier for a server to return full pages without messing with this). If ESI is off, there’s no need to change settings for admin bar, comment form, Nonces, or Vary Group. I’ve never used the ESI feature so I’ll be the one to admit I shouldn’t be giving advice on it.

Object

Redis is more powerful than Memcached, especially for WooCommerce/dynamic sites and for speeding up your admin. Only some hosts support Redis while others support Memcached or don’t support object cache at all. Do a search on whether your host supports object cache and their instructions (if they wrote them). For example, here are ChemiCloud’s Redis instructions.

Step 1: Find Redis or Memcached in your hosting account (i.e. cPanel → Redis Object Cache). This may also be in the “PHP Extensions” menu, or you can search instructions from your host.

Step 2: Enable Redis and take note of the port number + socket path.

Step 3: In LiteSpeed Cache, enable Object Cache and set the method. Paste the port number (host field) + socket path. Save changes and you should pass the connection test. Even when passing the connection test, I suggest contacting your host to make sure it’s working correctly.

• Object Cache: On – database caching speeds up the admin and improves performance.
• Method: Redis – more powerful  than Memcached but only supported by certain hosts, while others support Memcached (or none). Activate it in your hosting account, then here.
• Host: check hosting account – should be listed as “socket path” in your hosting account.
• Port: check hosting account – or try the default ports (Memcached: 11211, Redis: 6379).
• Default Object Cache Lifetime: 360s is fine.
• Username/Password: leave as-is (not needed).
• Redis Database ID: used when installing Redis on multiple sites – if 1 host account is used to add Redis on multiple sites, each site will have it’s own Redis Database ID (0-100).
• Global Groups: leave as-is (groups that should be cached at network level).
• Do Not Cache Groups: leave unless you want to add groups excluded in object cache.
• Persistent Connection: On – connection is kept alive to make object cache even faster.
• Cache WP-Admin: On – speeds up admin (keep on unless you’re seeing outdated data).
• Store Transients: Off when cache wp-admin is enabled – shows server status notifications when cache wp-admin is disabled. If that setting is on, you can leave this off.

Browser

• Browser Cache: On – not sure why this isn’t enabled by default.
• Browser Cache TTL: 31557600 – 1 year (~31557600 seconds) is recommended by Google to “serve static assets with an efficient cache policy” and tells browsers how long cache is stored. WooCommerce or dynamic websites probably want to set this to 43800 (1 month).

Advanced

• Login Cookie: leave as-is (only needed if you have multiple WordPress installs and need the cache to distinguish who is logged into which WordPress site, not used for a multisite).
• Improve HTTP/HTTPS Compatibility: Off – only enable if you’re using both HTTP and HTTPS and are noticing issues with the cache. You can also try forcing SSL to solve issues.
• Instant Click: On – when users hover over a link, the page downloads in the background so by the time they click it, the page loads instantly (enabling it can consume resources).

 

5. CDN

QUIC.cloud is a highly performant CDN on CDN Performance Tracker and scored mostly green in my CDN spreadsheet with features like HTML caching, image optimization, and WAF + DDoS protection for security. It’s also needed for some LiteSpeed Cache features to work like critical CSS which needs to be updated when your site changes. You ideally want to use the standard plan ($.02-$.08/GB) with QUIC’s  DNS. This way, you get all 82 PoPs and better routing/Anycast.

How To Setup QUIC.Cloud

Step 1: In the LSC General settings, request a domain key and add your Server IP.

Step 2: Go to CDN → QUIC.cloud CDN Setup → “Begin QUIC.cloud CDN Setup.” Then click “Refresh CDN Setup Status” and you’ll get 2 nameservers (kevin.quicns.net and jon.quicns.org). QUIC’s DNS provides better performance when using LiteSpeed with more accurate geo-routing.

Step 3: In your domain registrar, change your nameservers to QUIC’s. Screenshot is for ChemiCloud (Domains → Manage Domain → Nameservers → Use Custom Nameservers).

Step 4: Configure the “CDN Config” settings in QUIC.cloud’s dashboard. 3 things I would try:

• QUIC backend – lets QUIC connect to your server via QUIC and HTTP/3.
• Block Browser XML-RPC – most sites don’t use XML-RPC and can block it.
• Hotlink Protection – prevents sites from copying images and using your bandwidth.

Step 5: Use the standard plan, not the free plan! The free plan only uses 6 PoPs without DDoS protection while the standard plan uses all 84 PoPs with more features. It costs $.02 – $.08/GB depending on the region (similar to BunnyCDN). You also get a certain amount of free credits every month if you’re using a host that uses LiteSpeed Enterprise (i.e. ChemiCloud, NameHero) but not if you use OpenLiteSpeed. Credits are needed for UCSS, CCSS, and image optimizations.

How To Setup Cloudflare (With Full Page Caching) Using LiteSpeed Cache

Cloudflare’s APO plugin isn’t compatible with LiteSpeed. The workaround is Super Page Cache For Cloudflare plugin. It’s is similar to APO but more compatible and free. I’ll leave Cloudflare instructions below if you want to test it, but I usually recommend QUIC.cloud’s Standard Plan.

Step 1: Change your DNS to Cloudflare which performs well on dnsperf.com. Add your website to Cloudflare, they will scan records, then provide you with 2 nameservers. In ChemiCloud, you will change these (Domains → Manage Domains → Nameservers → Use Custom Nameservers).

Step 2: Install the Super Page Cache For Cloudflare plugin. Add your Cloudflare email, global API key, domain, and enable page caching. According to the developer (iSaumya), follow these next steps. If you have additional questions, I recommend asking iSaumya in a support thread.

1. Disable LiteSpeed’s page caching and guest mode + guest optimization.
2. “Only use LiteSpeed Cache for static file optimization.” However, I believe you can still configure it normally except for the caching/CDN settings (including using it for object cache, crawler, database optimization, Heartbeat, and image/page optimization settings).
3. Do not enter your Cloudflare API details in LiteSpeed Cache (it’s handled by this plugin).
4. Do not use the official Cloudflare plugin and make sure APO is disabled in CF dashboard.
5. Enable fallback cache in Super Page Cache, then disable page caching in LiteSpeed Cache.

Step 3: Configure settings in your Cloudflare dashboard (I recommend the following):

Step 4: Use SpeedVital’s TTFB test to test TTFB in 40 locations. You’ll want to test your site about 3 times to ensure resources are cached and your CDN is using the closest data center.

CDN Settings

• QUIC.cloud CDN – On – QUIC was built specifically for LiteSpeed. However, you need to use the standard plan ($.02 – $.08/GB) if you want to use all 83 PoPs and DDoS protection.
• Use CDN Mapping – Off – QUIC.cloud’s CDN and Cloudflare don’t use CDN mapping, so this would usually be off. The only time you should use it is if you’re using a CDN that uses a CDN URL like BunnyCDN. In this case, add the CDN URL and select the files to be served.
• HTML Attribute To Replace – leave as-is since the CDN mapping setting is turned off.
• Original URLs – leave as-is unless it’s a multisite with different domains + subdomains.
• Included Directories – just the wp-content and wp-includes directories should be fine.
• Exclude Path – leave as-is unless you want to exclude specific directories from above.
• Cloudflare API – only needed if you’re using Cloudflare’s CDN instead of QUIC.cloud CDN.

 

6. Image Optimization

Configure the image optimization settings, then send an optimization request.

• Auto Request Cron – On – sends a request to optimize newly uploaded images.
• Auto Pull Cron – On – if the previous setting is turned on, this should be on too.
• Optimize Original Images – On – see LiteSpeed’s example, but likely turn this on.
• Remove Original Backups – Off – don’t remove unless you’re happy with the quality.
• Optimize Losslessly – On – I prefer lossless compression but you can try this yourself.
• Preserve EXIF/XMP Data – Off – removing EXIF data helps reduce your image sizes.
• Create WebP Versions – On – create WebP images to serve them in next-gen formats.
• Image WebP Replacement – On – enable this if you have the previous option enabled.
• WebP Attribute To Replace – specify the element attributes to be replaced by WebP.
• WebP For Extra srcset – On – makes sure images in custom code are served as WebP.
• WordPress Image Quality Control – 85 – PSI tests images at 85% so that’s what I use.

 

7. Page Optimization

CSS Settings

• CSS Minify – On – removes unnecessary characters from CSS.
• CSS Combine – Test – Johnny makes some good arguments on why you shouldn’t combine especially if you have large CSS files. However, this is needed for UCSS to work. This is something that really depends on your website, so be sure to test your own results.
• Generate UCSS – Off – only use if CSS combine is turned on. UCSS helps remove unused CSS, but heavy CSS is often from themes/plugins which you can measure in the Chrome Dev Tools coverage report (see screenshot). If this is on, “cache mobile” should also be on. UCSS relies on QUIC.cloud (as well as CCSS) so you’ll want to be using QUIC if those are on.
• UCSS Inline – Off – this should always be off. Even if UCSS is enabled, it’s better to load it in a separate file vs. inline (explained by Vikas). This way, the separate file can be cached and doesn’t increase HTML size. Turning this on might give you better PageSpeed Insights scores, but it’s slower for actual visitors. Same reason remove unused CSS is faster in FlyingPress (which loads it in a separate file) compared to WP Rocket which loads it inline.
• CSS Combine External and Inline – Off – turn on if “combine CSS” is also on. This also combines external/inline CSS files which can often prevent your website from breaking.
• Load CSS Asynchronously – Test – you’ll likely get FOUC or layout shift issues if this is enabled, but this is something I would definitely test and see how it impacts your speed.
• CCSS Per URL – Off – disable if previous option is off, especially if using a page builder.
• Inline CSS Async Lib – Off – CSS will be render-blocking, but you’ll avoid FOUC issues.
• Font Display Optimization – default. Setting this to Swap can also cause FOUC issues. But if you see “ensure text remains visible during webfont load” in PSI, you can try Swap.

JS Settings

• JS Minify – On – strips unnecessary characters from JavaScript.
• JS Combine – Off – don’t combine with HTTP/2 or large JS files.
• JS Combine External and Inline – Off – only enable if JS combine is enabled.
• Load JS Deferred – Test – delay will probably give you the best results, deferred is also good but can break your website, off is safest. If the defer option breaks your site, exclude problematic files under “JS Deferred Excludes” in the Tuning settings. Test them yourself.

HTML Settings

• HTML Minify – On – strips unnecessary characters from HTML.
• DNS Prefetch – open your third-party code report in PSI and look at all third-party domains loading on your site. Ignore CDN URLs + fonts.gstatic.com since they should use preconnect instead of prefetch. Next, eliminate all third-party code that is being delayed. The only domains you should prefetch are the ones left after that. Or you can see this list.
• DNS Prefetch Control – On – leave it on, but nothing to do if you added them manually.
• HTML Lazy Load Selectors – similar to lazy loading images only it can be done for any below the fold element (#comments and #footer are common, WooCommerce related products, and Elementor sections loading near the bottom of the page). This video has the same steps for LSC. View your site → right click any element you want to lazy load → inspect → right click highlighted code → copy → copy selector → paste it into this field.
• Remove Query Strings – Off – somewhat outdated and shouldn’t impact load times.
• Load Google Fonts Asynchronously – Off – test carefully and view your GTmetrix Waterfall “fonts” tab to see the difference in your font load times. I like to keep it off.
• Remove Google Fonts – Off – only use if you’re hosting fonts locally and want to make sure any third-party fonts aren’t being loaded on your website, which they shouldn’t be.
• Remove WordPress Emoji – On – emojis aren’t good for load times, so turn this on.
• Remove Noscript Tags – Off – some people are still using old browsers. Keeping tags ensures better compatibility to make sure your website’s JavaScript is loaded correctly.

Media Settings

• Lazy Load Images – On – you can also add a fade-in effect for smoother scrolling.
• Basic Image Placeholder – use an image placeholder while the images are loading.
• Responsive Placeholder – Depends – on if using basic image placeholder (reduces CLS).
• Responsive Placeholder SVG – specify the SVG to use as the responsive placeholder.
• Responsive Placeholder Color – default gray color LiteSpeed Cache uses should be fine.
• LQIP Cloud Generator – On – a lower quality image (which is generated by QUIC.cloud) will be used as the placeholder before the higher quality image is loaded. Test it yourself.
• LQIP Quality – if the previous setting is enabled, this determines the lower quality image.
• LQIP Minimum Dimensions – 150×150 pixels is fine. This is only for when LQIP cloud generator is turned on, and LQIP will only be used when images are larger than this size.
• Generate LQIP In Background – On – LiteSpeed says turning it off slows down page load.
• Lazy Load Iframes – On – lazy loading videos, maps, and other iframes improves speed.
• Add Missing Sizes – On – adds missing image dimensions to set explicit widths + heights.

VPI

• Viewport Images – On – QUIC.cloud will detect images loading above the fold and automatically exclude them from lazy load for better LCP. Lazy load images must be on.
• Viewport Images Cron – On – they’re generated in the background via cron-based queue.

Media Excludes

While the Viewport Images setting tries to exclude viewport images from lazy load for better LCP, you can manually exclude them to make sure. Since page builders load background images in CSS, they’re not lazy loaded by default, meaning you’ll need to use the data-no-lazy attribute.

• Logo – add the image URL.
• Sidebar images – add the image URL or class name.
• Featured images – add the class name (i.e. class=”attachment-full size-full).
• Background images – add the “data-no-lazy” attribute to background images.

Localization

• Gravatar Cache – On – great when you have lots of comments with Gravatars.
• Gravatar Cache Cron – On – you want it enabled if the previous setting is enabled.
• Gravatar Cache TTL – the default setting of 604800 seconds (1 week) should be fine.
• Localize Resources – On – great feature to localize external JS files. Add them below.
• Localization Files – open your third-party code report to see which JavaScript files are loading, then consider delaying them (Google Analytics, Tag Manager, reCAPTCHA, etc). I copied the list from LSC and added it below (see “popular scripts”). Instead of delaying Google Fonts, host them locally. Delaying ads can also affect revenue. See common issues.

### CDNs ###
https://ajax.aspnetcdn.com
https://ajax.cloudflare.com/
https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/
https://cdnjs.com/
https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/
https://code.jquery.com/
https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/
https://netdna.bootstrapcdn.com/
https://oss.maxcdn.com/
https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/

### Popular Scripts ###
https://maps.google.com/maps/api/js
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js
https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
https://platform-api.sharethis.com/js/
https://s7.addthis.com/js/
https://stats.wp.com/
https://ws.sharethis.com/button/
https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api.js
https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js
https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js
https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js
https://www.googletagservices.com/tag/js/gpt.js
https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js
https://connect.facebook.net/signals/config/

Tuning
Most settings are if you want to exclude specific things from being optimized (CSS, JS, URLs, deferred JS, Guest Mode JS, and roles). You usually only need to do this if a specific setting breaks your site. For example, if you minify or combine CSS/JS and it breaks your site, find the problematic file (in your source code), then add them. Same concept for most other settings.

 

8. Database

In the Manage tab, you probably want to delete everything except post revisions and auto drafts, which are backups of posts that you may need in the future. You can also optimize tables.

DB Optimization Settings

• Revisions Max Number – 10 gives you some backups while not adding too much bloat. I prefer to be more aggressive with 5, but it’s totally up to you how many revisions to keep.
• Revisions Max Age – 0 makes sense to me (they will never be deleted). Sometimes I don’t update a post for a very long time, so automatically deleting the backups isn’t a good idea.

 

9. Crawler

This crawls your site for pages with expired cache and refreshes them. It consumes resources which is why it’s controlled at a server level and usually not allowed by most hosts, especially shared hosting (it’s usually only if you manage your own server). So, you usually don’t need to do anything. If you do manage your own server, you’ll want to enable the crawler and see WP Johnny’s instructions (in summary, he recommends enabling the crawler in the General settings, submitting your sitemap in Sitemap settings, then leaving all other settings as default).

 

10. Toolbox

Most Toolbox settings are explanatory (purging, import/export, edit .htaccess, reports, debug, logs, beta test, etc). So I’ll just cover the heartbeat settings which control WordPress heartbeat.

Heartbeat

• Frontend Heartbeat Control – On – control heartbeat in the frontend.
• Frontend Heartbeat TTL – 0 – you can usually disable it here, but test it.
• Backend Heartbeat Control – On – control heartbeat in the backend.
• Backend Heartbeat TTL – 0 – you can usually disable it here, but test it.
• Editor Heartbeat – On – controls heartbeat in the post editor.
• Editor Heartbeat TTL – 120 – you probably want things like autosaves, but increase it.

 

11. Configure Perfmatters With LiteSpeed Cache

Perfmatters has a few optimizations not included with LiteSpeed Cache (bloat removal, script manager to reduce CSS/JS, and the preloading tab to preload fonts/images). Configure your LiteSpeed Cache settings normally, then disable everything in Perfmatters except the following:

General Settings – configure these normally, but don’t move your wp-login page or QUIC’s brute-force attack protection won’t protect it. Since LSC already limits Heartbeat, you don’t need to do this in Perfmatters, so you can leave it as “default.” Otherwise, many of these are optimizations related to WordPress core – something LiteSpeed Cache wouldn’t generally do.

Script Manager – disable plugins or CSS/JS files where they’re not used (reduces CSS/JS size). First, enable the script manager, then go to your script manager settings to enable test mode and display dependencies. Test mode lets you test the script manager without it breaking your site by only showing changes to logged in admins (just remember to disable this when you’re done to publish changes). Display dependencies shows you plugins using jQuery (try to avoid).

Next, view any page on your site and in the top menu, go to Perfmatters → Script Manager. Go through your list of plugins/CSS/JS files to see what doesn’t need to load on the page. You have several options on where to disable them. This is often done with page builder/WooCommerce plugins (which are notorious for loading everything). Two examples are disabling your contact form everywhere but the contact page or disabling social sharing plugins everywhere but posts:

Preloading – LSC can’t preload fonts/images, so you can use Perfmatters for this. You usually don’t need prefetch/preconnect since most third-party code will be hosted locally or delayed.

• Fonts – copy your font files from a Waterfall chart and test preloading them. This only works when fonts are hosted locally and should only be done if they’re above the fold or are in CSS files. Preloading should reduce blocking time (brown bar in GTmetrix) and LCP.
• Images – LSC excludes above the fold images from lazy load using the Viewport setting, but it doesn’t preload them. You can use Perfmatters to preload images (or use a plugin).
• wp-block-library – if you use Gutenberg, try preloading wp-block-library. If you’re not using Gutenberg, consider disabling this file in your script manager to slightly reduce CSS.

 

12. Other Plugins To Consider With LiteSpeed Cache

• Preload LCP Image – adds a field to preload above the fold images.
• Pre* Party Resource Hints – preloads files that load across your entire site (fonts, logo, Gutenberg’s wp-block-library, and possibly other files shown in your PageSpeed report).
• Unbloater – removes bloat (similar to the Perfmatters general settings) like notifications, XML-RPC, WLW Manifest, RSD Link, Shortlink, jQuery migrate, limiting post revisions, etc.
• ShortPixel Adaptive Images – resize images for mobile, but do not use ShortPixel’s CDN.

 

13. List Of 7 LiteSpeed Hosts I Recommend

If you want to use a host because you saw “glowing reviews” in these 25 Facebook groups, Reddit’s friends of /r/webhosting, or TrustPilot, good luck with that. They’re all censored to favor “partners.” If you read this tutorial and think I know my stuff, these are the 7 LiteSpeed hosts I recommend based on my research/testing and a decade following hosting companies.

Shared

• ChemiCloud: get a fast TTFB (~100ms globally) for cheap ($3-7/mo). Here’s a demo site using their WordPress Turbo plan + LiteSpeed Cache + QUIC.cloud. They should only be used for low traffic static sites where wp-admin performance isn’t high priority.
• Due to slower CPUs and typical resource limits that come with shared hosting,
• . Usually for people leaving hosts like Bluehost, Hostinger, and SiteGround.
• NameHero: similar to ChemiCloud with higher limits and slightly faster, likely from faster CPUs. However, they limit CPU usage, backups, and have more complaints on suspension than most shared hosts. The Turbo WordPress plan is often on sale for $3.99/month which is a really solid value, but I probably wouldn’t buy their plans at the normal (higher) price.
• MechanicWeb: better performance + less restrictions than the first 2, but you never hear about them since they barely do any marketing and have a low paying affiliate program. AMD Ryzen 9950X servers boost to 5.7 Ghz and are available in Dallas + Los Angeles (USA). If these are where your visitors are, this will be undoubtedly be the fastest hosting option.

VPS

• xCloud (Vultr High Frequency): if you’re on Cloudways, xCloud and GridPane both support Vultr High Frequency on OpenLiteSpeed without 2x markups like Cloudways (better performance for a lower price). You also get $300 in free credits when using this Vultr aff link. 2vCPU + 4GB ($24/mo) are good numbers for a lot of websites, then follow xCloud’s guide on adding your Vultr API key. Support seems to be to biggest complaint which is pretty standard when you’re trying to save money by using VPS control panels.
• Scala Hosting: mostly green for 3 reasons. Performance (4 GHz CPUs + OpenLiteSpeed + NVMe SSDs). Saves you money on VPS licenses (LiteSpeed, cPanel, and Imunify360 are replaced with OpenLiteSpeed, SPanel, and SShield). And flexibility… you can customize resources (cores, RAM, storage), there are no software restrictions (inodes + disk I/O), and a 30-day money-back guarantee (usually 7 for VPS). I also like how open to feedback they are, like SPanel feedback. They also asked me to forward complaints to them, like one on support/onboarding. Chris and Vlad go out of their way to improve via constant feedback.
• MechanicWeb: if visitors are near Los Angeles (USA) and you want a VPS with the 5.7 Ghz AMD Ryzen 9950X server (and faster specs like DDR5 ECC RAM) – this is the plan you want.

Agencies (Multiple Sites) Or 1 Extremely High Traffic Site

• GridPane (Vultr High Frequency): the same $3k/mo Enterprise plan on Kinsta or WP Engine costs ~$300/mo on GridPane. From Cloudways, you’ll save approximately 30%. They’re a top performer in Kevin Ohashi’s benchmarks while Kinsta, WP Engine, and Cloudways are not (it’s all marketing)! You get faster CPUs (up to 5.7 GHz), OLS or Nginx, better server caching, and Redis + Relay (unlike Cloudways). There are no resource limits besides those you get directly from your cloud provider. No more getting ripped off with limits on PHP workers, monthly visits, and $100/mo Redis. You also have significantly more tools to manage servers with their robust (yet user-friendly) control panel. And if you have 1 extremely high traffic site, GridPane is known for hosting the unhostable no matter the number of concurrent eCommerce checkouts. If you’re spending $200 or even $2k/mo on hosting, where have you been getting hosting advice? Check out their docs (i.e. getting started), Facebook group, or watch a YouTube interview. Patrick Gallagher knows his shit and I can almost guarantee you’ll getter better performance (than anyone) at a lower cost.

Measuring Hosting Performance

• KeyCDN / SpeedVitals –

• WordPress Hosting Benchmark Tool –

I don’t recommend Hostinger. They have a history of scams, write fake reviews, and their servers/support are totally unreliable. My site is my baby, and my baby doesn’t like scammers.

Go LiteSpeed!

 

Did I Miss Anything?

I’m always looking to improve my tutorials and will listen to any suggestions you have in the comments. Otherwise if you liked my LiteSpeed Cache guide, I would appreciate you sharing it!

Cheers,
Tom