Did you know most hosts have a “specs page” listing the fine details of each plan?
Well, when you compare NameHero’s specs and pricing to other hosts, you’ll realize why NameHero is getting so popular. Here are the spec pages for SiteGround, Hostinger, A2, Cloudways, and Bluehost. Do your own research. You’re going to see four key differences:
- You get more CPU cores/RAM for cheaper.
- NameHero uses LiteSpeed on all plans (A2 only uses it on higher plans).
- NameHero uses NVMe storage on all but 2 plans (most hosts use SATA SSDs).
- You can LiteSpeed Cache + QUIC.cloud on all plans (arguably the fastest/cheapest setup).
Why more people aren’t using NameHero is beyond me. Their network status page usually has less scheduled maintenance / incidents and support is actually solid for the price you’re paying, although that’s something you have to experience yourself. You can check out Ryan’s YouTube videos (their CEO) who is a genuinely down to earth guy. The one main con is their data centers are only located in the US + Netherlands. If that’s where your visitors are, I give NameHero a +1.
- More CPU/RAM than similar LiteSpeed hosts
- Only US + NL data centers
- Pros & cons
- Getting started
- Free migration
- LiteSpeed server on all plans
- LiteSpeed Cache
- QUIC.cloud CDN
- More speed tweaks
- Higher uptimes than similar hosts
- Above average support for cheap hosting
- Shared hosting is not cloud hosting
- Security
- Green friendly
- NameHero vs. similar hosts
Affiliate Disclaimer: I use affiliate links to NameHero, but you won’t find 1 single affiliate link on my blog to SiteGround, Hostinger, Bluehost, and other low quality hosts.
1. More CPU/RAM Than Similar LiteSpeed Hosts
Even though all 4 hosts below use LiteSpeed, they don’t give you the same amount of CPU/RAM. Let’s take a look at each hosts “spec page” and see whether you’re actually getting a good value.




Hostinger is “cheap” because you’re basically paying $1-2 less on each plan for about half the CPU/RAM, which makes Hostinger’s WordPress hosting the most expensive out of the 4 options:
Referring to CPU/RAM, NameHero and ChemiCloud are a better value than A2/Hostinger.

2. Only US + NL Data Centers
NameHero’s data centers are in the US (Michigan, Arizona, Missouri) and EU (Amsterdam).
You should only use them if your visitors are geographically close to US/EU. Otherwise, I’d use ChemiCloud which is very similar to NameHero in terms of LiteSpeed, cPanel, CPU/RAM, and price. But they have data centers in several other countries with a solid 4.9/5 TrustPilot rating.
3. NameHero Pros & Cons
Pros
- cPanel is easy.
- All plans use LiteSpeed.
- Cheap intro price for 1-3 years.
- No need to buy paid cache plugins or email hosting.
- LiteSpeed Cache does a great job addressing wb vitals.
- QUIC.cloud’s HTML caching should further improve TTFB.
- Less chance of CPU spikes (LiteSpeed servers are efficient).
- More CPU/RAM for a better value compared to similar hosts.
- NVMe storage on higher Turbo Cloud + Business Cloud plans.
- NVMe storage, MariaDB, PHP-FPM on all managed cloud plans.
- Less scheduled maintenance/downtimes (check the network status page).
- 1 year free domain on higher plans, SSL, email hosting, other basic features.
- Support is above average for this price range and the CEO (Ryan) is a solid dude.
Cons
- US + NE data centers only.
- 2-day outage in November, 2021.
- Must sign up for 3 years to get the cheapest price.
- Using the word “cloud” in shared hosting plans is misleading.
- Lowest 2 shared plans don’t use NVMe and only have 250k inodes.
- Higher renewal prices after 1-3 years (standard with shared hosting).
4. Getting Started
I usually recommend the Turbo Cloud plan for 3 years which is $287.28.
This gives you 3 CPU cores, 3GB RAM, NVMe, and 500k inodes (if you’re on a budget, you could get 1 year of their cheapest Starter cloud plan for $39.42). You have to sign up for 3 years to get the cheapest price, so if for some reason you’re not happy, make sure to cancel within 30 days.
Change Nameservers – once signed up, skip to 42:12 which shows you how to change nameservers (only needed if you bought a domain somewhere else). This is found in your dashboard under domains → three dots → manage nameservers → use custom nameservers.
Install WordPress – login to cPanel in your NameHero dashboard and search “WordPress Manager by Softaculous.” Make sure to leave the directory field blank and use HTTPS (SSL is installed automatically). Click Install, add your WordPress login details, and install WordPress.
NameHero’s general dashboard is very easy. You’ll find links to login to cPanel, change nameservers, open a support ticket, register/transfer domains, manage plans, and billing.
5. Free Migration
You can request a free migration by opening a ticket.
NameHero includes 1 free website migration within the first 30 days of placing your order. It includes migrating your cPanel (emails, databases, etc) for accounts less than 8GB compressed.
6. LiteSpeed Server On All Plans
Unlike A2 Hosting which only uses LiteSpeed on higher plans, NameHero uses it on all plans.
The LiteSpeed server + LiteSpeed Cache + QUIC.cloud combo is arguably the fastest (and cheapest) shared hosting options now. There’s also a less chance of CPU spikes since it’s more efficient. The polls below were taken in 2020 but since then, even more people started using LiteSpeed, which you can tell because the LiteSpeed Cache plugin now has 3+ million installs.




7. LiteSpeed Cache
LiteSpeed Cache is better than WP Rocket and SiteGround Optimizer because:
- It has more optimizations to better address core web vitals.
- Server-side caching is faster than WP Rocket’s file-based caching.
- It optimizes for real world browsing speed and first time visits (not just scores).
- It isn’t rigged with compatibility issues like SG Optimizer (check support forums).
SG Optimizer | WP Rocket | LiteSpeed Cache | |
---|---|---|---|
Price | Free | $49/year | Free |
Server-side caching | ✓ | x | ✓ |
Critical CSS | x | ✓ | ✓ |
Delay JavaScript | x | ✓ | ✓ |
Remove unused CSS | x | Inline | Separate file |
Preload links | x | ✓ | ✓ |
Object cache | ✓ | x | ✓ |
Host third-party code locally | x | x | ✓ |
Lazy render HTML elements | x | x | ✓ |
Lazy load background images | x | Inline | Helper class |
Add missing image dimensions | x | ✓ | ✓ |
First time visit optimization | x | x | Guest mode |
Control preloading | x | ✓ | ✓ |
Advanced cache control | x | x | ✓ |
ESI (edge side includes) | x | x | ✓ |
Gravatar cache | x | x | ✓ |
Limit post revisions | Delete all | Delete all | Keep some |
CDN | SiteGround CDN | StackPath | QUIC (standard plan) |
CDN PoPs | 14 | 60 | 73 |
CDN price | Freemium | $7.99/month+ | $.02-.08/GB |
Dynamic caching | Paid | x | ✓ |
Image optimization | Kind of | x | ✓ |
DDoS protection | x | x | ✓ |
- Faster server-side caching – LiteSpeed’s server-side caching is faster than WP Rocket and most cache plugin’s slower file-based caching, and it also addresses core web vitals.
- HTTP/3 with QUIC – Ryan from NameHero made a YouTube video on how to set this up.
- Less chance of CPU spikes – LiteSpeed is capable of handling 2x of websites than Apache and can handle potentially thousands of clients with minimal impact to memory or CPU. You can activate Redis in LSC which has more efficient memory usage than Memcached.
- Image optimization – most cache plugins don’t have this. LSC has extensive image optimization settings including lossless compression, WebP, and image placeholders.
- DDoS protection – LiteSpeed comes with quite a few security and anti-DDos features.
- Redis + Memcached – Ryan has a YouTube video on how to set this up (I prefer Redis).
- More control of public/private caching – LiteSpeed Cache has a lot more settings that give you better caching control for logged-in users, public/private cache, as well as ESI.
LiteSpeed Cache Settings – I have a full tutorial on configuring LiteSpeed Cache but I added the “best” settings below in a gallery (of course the best settings completely depend on your website, so take these as a starting point). You’ll definitely want to go through the full tutorial.
Setting Up Object Cache (Redis or Memcached) – you’ll want to set up object caching using Redis or memcached (I prefer Redis). Activate it in cPanel → Select PHP Version → Extensions.
Then activate it in LiteSpeed Cache’s object cache settings.
8. QUIC.cloud CDN
QUIC.cloud’s free plan only uses 6 PoPs without DDoS protection while their standard (paid) plan uses all 73 PoPs with DDoS protection. It costs $.02-$.08/GB and is a credit-based system.
Which means if for a paid CDN, you should definitely be using QUIC.cloud. But for a free CDN, you’re probably better off using Cloudflare.
Why You Should Use QUIC.cloud
- HTTP/3
- DDoS protection
- HTML caching (improves TTFB which you can measure in KeyCDN)
- It’s needed for page/image optimizations + LQIP in LiteSpeed Cache

Setting Up QUIC.cloud
Ryan from NameHero already made a video on setting up QUIC.cloud with LiteSpeed, but I listed the steps below as well. There’s a lot of good stuff there and I recommend watching it.
Step 1: Enable QUIC.cloud in LiteSpeed Cache’s CDN settings (CDN Mapping should be off).
Step 2: In the General settings, click “link to QUIC.cloud.”
Step 3: View the QUIC dashboard, sign up, and your domain will be added automatically.
Step 4: Click your domain and go to CDN → Enable CDN.
Step 5: Choose a method for connecting the CDN: QUIC.cloud DNS, Cloudflare DNS, or CNAME (external DNS). QUIC.cloud + Cloudflare’s DNS are both fast, but QUIC.cloud DNS is the easiest.
- QUIC.cloud DNS: the easiest method is using QUIC.cloud’s DNS but this means you’ll be using AWS’s Route53 which is usually slower than Cloudflare’s DNS. They will copy your DNS records, then click “enable and add records” and they will assign you 2 nameservers. Login to your domain registrar and change nameservers to QUIC’s. Wait for QUIC to detect the change (i.e. 30 min.) and refresh the page. If successful, you’ll see “Using DNS” in QUIC.
- Cloudflare: LiteSpeed has a video tutorial on this. You will change your CNAME in Cloudflare to the one provided by QUIC.cloud. To do this, go to Cloudflare’s DNS settings and delete the A records for both your www and non-www domain. Next, create CNAME records for www and non-www domains. Make sure you use “DNS Only.” If you have Mail or MX records which use your root domain, you will need to create a subdomain and point the MX record to it. If you have issues, it may be caused by redirects in your .htaccess file.
- CNAME: copy the address from QUIC.cloud and login to your NameHerp cpanel. Head to the Zone Editor → Manage and find your domain (www.tomdupuisdemo.com). Click “edit” and change the record (tomdupuisdemo.com) to the URL from QUIC.cloud. Note this only works if your site is using the www version in your WordPress General settings.



Step 6: Verify QUIC.cloud’s CDN is working. You should see a confirmation message in your QUIC.cloud dashboard (i.e. Using DNS when using QUIC.cloud’s DNS). Eventually, you’ll see traffic is served through QUIC.cloud in the Analytics settings. You can also do an HTTP/3 Test.
Step 7: Configure the “CDN Config” settings in QUIC.cloud. Here are a few tips:
- Enable static cache (unless you’re using another CDN to cache static files)
- Enable QUIC backend which lets QUIC connect to your server via QUIC and HTTP/3.
- There are several other WordPress/security settings you can use to protect your site.
Step 8: Upgrade to the standard plan which uses all 70 PoPs and DDoS protection. You get a certain amount of free monthly credits, then it costs $.02-$.08/GB depending on which regions you select. QUIC is also needed for UCSS, CCSS, and LQIP, so it’s definitely worth upgrading IMO.


9. More Speed Tweaks
Here are a few extra speed tweaks that can be found in your NameHero cPanel under Select PHP Version (use both the Extensions and Options menu), Cron Jobs, and Hotlink Protection.
- PHP 8.0 – I would use PHP 8.0 since it’s faster than PHP 7.4 and still gives you access to Redis which isn’t found in PHP 8.1 at the time of writing this (but feel free to check if it is).
- OPCache – this improves PHP performance and CPU utilization (this should help reduce the chance of CPU spikes). OPCache can be found under Select PHP Version → Extensions.
- Brotli – this is only available on PHP 7.4 in the PHP Extensions settings, ignore otherwise.
- Increase memory limit – I would generally increase this from 128MB to 256MB. This is found under Select PHP Version → Options, along with several other settings which are useful if you’re trying to upload large files or themes/plugins taking a long time to upload.
- Hotlink protection – stops people from stealing your images and consuming bandwidth.
- Replace WP-Cron with a real cron job – by default, this loads on every pageview and increases CPU usage. It’s much better to disable this and schedule a real cron job. There are 2 steps. First, disable WP-Cron by adding this line of code to your wp-config.php file.
define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);
Next, go to “Cron Jobs” in your NameHero cPanel and add the following code to “command line.” Set this to run every hour and replace https://yourwebsite.com with your actual domain.
wget https://yourwebsite.com/wp-cron.php > /dev/null 2>&1
10. Higher Uptimes Than Similar Hosts
Here is NameHero’s network status page. They usually have less maintenance/downtimes compared to similar hosts, although it obviously changes depending on when you check it.
I’m not doing another BS uptime test since it depends on which plan, server, and node you’re using. Most hosts should have an uptime status page showing scheduled maintenance + major incidents. Pretty much every host has a major outage at some point, so I like to look at 4 things:
- How long was the outage?
- How did they respond?
- Do they have a network status page?
- How “bad” is the routine maintenance on their network status page?
NameHero had a major outage in December, 2021 lasting 2 days. Ryan (NameHero founder) posted a detailed response. Read it yourself and make your own judgment. He takes full responsibility and it sounds like he worked as hard as he could, but that’s for you to decide.
Fun fact: On most host’s terms and conditions page, they state that scheduled maintenance does not count towards their uptime guarantee. You can advertise a 99.99% guarantee, then have as much downtime as you want as long as it’s scheduled.
How do NameHero’s uptimes stack up against other hosts?
- SiteGround’s DNS was blocked for 4 days. On Twitter, they said “there is no blocking on our end” but then 2 days later, said they fixed it. They never advised customers to move to an external DNS. Google rankings dropped and some websites completely disappeared from search results. SiteGround does not have a public uptime status page on their site.
- A2’s major outage was over 2 weeks. At that point, your response doesn’t mean much.
- Hostinger hasn’t had a major outage from my research, but their uptime status page usually shows alarmingly large amounts of maintenance which can have long downtimes.
- Cloudways resells cloud hosting from multiple providers, so you’ll need to check Vultr, DigitalOcean, or whatever cloud host you use with. Vultr had bad downtime issues in the past but it seems to have cleaned up in recent years. DigitalOcean has been more reliable.
11. Above Average Support For Cheap Hosting
NameHero’s support is actually good for the price, but obviously this is something you need to experience yourself.
They have phone, live chat, and tickets, but the biggest thing is they’ve always been helpful no matter which question I ask (without pressuring me to upgrade). This is likely why NameHero has a 4.7/5 star TrustPilot rating. I’ve only used it a few times (which is a good thing). They also keep a log of all their support’s feedback and publish this on their website, which is reassuring.
12. Shared Hosting is NOT Cloud Hosting
NameHero’s shared hosting (Starter Cloud, Business Cloud, etc) is not cloud hosting.
They need to rename all of their shared hosting plans to not include “cloud” in their names because it’s misleading and only uses isolated containers. NameHero’s managed cloud plans are cloud hosting which is why they’re more expensive. I still like NameHero, but come on now.
13. Security
NameHero uses Security Shield to protect your website against malware, DDoS, and several other types of attack. They use a firewall that detects attacks real-time and add patches automatically. They also have a malware scanner add-on (you can activate it at checkout). I believe NameHero requires the use of two-factor authentication using Google Authenticator.
14. Green Friendly
In a blog article announcing NameHero’s Kansas City data center, they also said:
“Additionally we’re taking an enormous green initiative to be extremely efficient to help protect our environment.”
I emailed Ryan (NameHero CEO) asking for additional info. Here’s his response:
To start, we chose a location that is located underground, in what used to be an old limestone mine. This not only provides protection from natural disasters (tornadoes not uncommon) but also natural temperature control (underground stays around ~68 degrees year round).
Inside our facility all systems are designed to be extremely efficient. Even the lightning throughout shuts off automatically and only turns on with motion (i.e. someone walking in the hall or entering a room).
Our primary energy partner is Evergy whom we have a very special partnership with where a good portion of our supply comes from renewables (i.e. wind). They’ve already committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2045 with 50% of all their energy being emissions-free.
We utilize Flywheel energy inside (instead of the “old school” backup UPS systems that contain chemical-based batteries):
Just some advantages:
- Response – it can promptly store huge bursts of energy, and equally rapidly return them
- Efficiency – charges/discharges are made with very small losses; as an electrical storage system a flywheel can have efficiencies over 97%
- Maintenance – flywheels do not require cooling nor do they pose the chemical recycling/maintenance issues of conventional batteries
- Lifespan – flywheels have a typical lifespan of about 20 years, while a lead-acid battery needs to be replaced every three to seven years – and even sooner for high cycle applications
Given we’re a cloud-based service provider, our entire infrastructure relies on virtualization, which does not use near the amount of equipment that “old school” dedicated servers use. With over 300K sq foot expansion space possible, we don’t have to stack equipment as tight as most providers, eliminating a lot of the “dense racks” that virtualization typically creates. This provides for even more efficient power/cooling usage.
We’re looking to create the “new age” of data centers by constantly optimizing our efficiency; utilizing what’s necessary, eliminating the unnecessary (i.e. always trimming the fat/bloat). A good example of this is within our core network infrastructure, that utilizes new software defined network technology to operate in a spine/leaf fashion where we can collapse the “old school” three tier networking model, and thus eliminate many pieces of “old school” hardware that’s still utilized in many data centers across the country (a hypervisor can also serve as a router/firewall eliminating more hardware that utilizes power/cooling resources).
15. NameHero vs. Similar Hosts
SiteGroundg GrowBig Plan | Hostinger Business WordPress Plan | A2 Hosting Turbo Plan | NameHero Turbo Cloud Plan | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Server | Nginx | LiteSpeed | LiteSpeed | LiteSpeed |
CPU cores | Not listed | 1-2 | 2 | 3 |
RAM (GB) | Not listed | .768 – 3.072 | 2 | 3 |
Storage | SATA | SATA | NVMe | NVMe |
Object cache | ✓ | x | ✓ | ✓ |
Compression | Brotli | Brotli | GZIP | Brotli |
CDN | SiteGround CDN | QUIC.cloud | QUIC.cloud | QUIC.cloud |
CDN PoPs | 14 | 73 | 73 | 73 |
Full page caching | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
HTTP/3 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Image optimization | Limited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
CPU limits | Common | Low resources | Efficient with LiteSpeed | Efficient with LiteSpeed |
Cache plugin | SG Optimizer | LiteSpeed Cache | LiteSpeed Cache | LiteSpeed Cache |
Email hosting | ✓ | Limited | ✓ | ✓ |
Major incidents | Google blocked DNS for 4 days | Security breach impacting 14M customers | 2 week ransomware attack | 2 day outage |
Migration | $30/site | Free | Free | Free |
Renewals | Up to 5x intros | About 3x intros | About 2.5x intros | About 2.5x intros |
TrustPilot rating | 4.6/5 | 4.5/5 (fake) | 4.5/5 | 4.7/5 |
Specs | View specs | View specs | View specs | View specs |
Summary
NameHero’s great, I don’t get why more people don’t use them.
- I appreciate your support if you sign up with my aff link (but not expected).
- I recommend the ID protection add-on which costs $6/year to prevent spam.
Cheers,
Tom
Hi, Tom! I’m a silent reader of your blog, and I think your analysis are amazing and honest. Congratulations, you’re truly a master!
Right now, I’m on Siteground, both hosting (GrowBig) and domains. After reading your other Siteground review, I’m really terrified, and you really convinced me to move on to another hosting company. BTW, SG’s ethics and bad practices is what really convinced me to. Also, I’d like to run my websites under LiteSpeed.
Therfore, I’m considering moving to Namehero. The question is: can I have my domains at SG and point them to a fresh NH Turbo Cloud Plan? Right now, the only advantage of SG is that domain privacy is enabled with no extra cost -due to the EU regulations-, and I suspect that, if I also transfer my domains to NH, I’ll be required to pay an extra amount for the domain ID protection, since it is an US-based company.
I fear that, if I let my GrowBig plan expire, I won’t be able to reach my SG panel to manage my domains. For obvious reasons, I discard asking SG customer service because they’ll try to tie me with both my hosting plan and domains at any cost.
Thank you for your attention, and sorry for this long comment. The information out there is confusing, and I prefer asking you, since you have experience literally in every hosting company.
Thanks Pablo!
Yes, you should be able keep your domains at SiteGround. I have a couple still there just cause I’m too lazy to transfer them. You would just grab your nameservers from NameHero (i.e. ns123.namehero.net + ns124.namehero.net) then add them to your SiteGround Account (Services > Domains > Manage Nameservers).
To be safe, I would order your NameHero plan 30 days before your SiteGround account expires since that’s NameHero’s refund policy. Again, just to make sure you’re happy with them.
I don’t like their pricing structure, which has a lot of hidden details and no monthly plans for tiny packages.
Can I say that the Name Hero Business Cloud plan is better and cheaper ($11.38) than the Vultr Cloud Compute 2vCpus 4gb plan ($30.00)? Or they are very different and I still can’t identify.
NameHero Business Cloud is still shared hosting, Vultr is cloud and is probably faster.
This was such a quality article. I’m planning to move to Name Hero soon. Even though many bloggers rave about Big scoots, I’m not so enthused. It’s not about the price either. I don’t see a lot of benefits on their page especially when it comes to storage. Could you do a comparison between NameHero and Big scoots if possible? Thanks!
I’ll try to do it soon! I’m focusing on the tutorials in my nav menu and adding a few more, but when those are done I will make a point to do this or at least try BigScoots and do a review… but it may take a couple months.
Hey Tom, great article. Looks like Namehero is really great. Why do you stick with Cloudways? It looks that Namehero with Litespeed + QUIC cloud is even better. What are your thougts?
Hey Tomi,
I’m sticking with Cloudways because I see no reason to move at the moment. TTFB, price, and support have all been great to me with no weird CPU issues like I had with SG. I just wish they would replace Apache with LiteSpeed and maybe improve their Breeze/CloudwaysCDN.
I started writing about NameHero mainly because it serves a different type of person. Not everyone wants to launch a server, spend the extra money to buy a better cache plugin than Breeze (or CloudwaysCDN), get their domain separately, go through email hosting workarounds, and jump through a few hoops like you would on Cloudways. NameHero is just easier and more standard you could say.
I don’t know, maybe I’ll see what happens with each of them and consider moving to NameHero cloud instances later this year. Can’t say for sure.