NameHero Review: My #1 Choice For LiteSpeed Hosting With More CPU/RAM, NVMe, cPanel (But Only US + NE Locations)

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.

 

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:

 

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

 

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.

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:

I emailed Ryan (NameHero CEO) asking for additional info. Here’s his response:

 

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	Very common	Low resources	Average	Average
Cache plugin	SG Optimizer	LiteSpeed Cache	LiteSpeed Cache	LiteSpeed Cache
Email hosting	✓	Limited	✓	✓
Previous 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

 

Summary

NameHero’s great, I don’t get why more people don’t use them.

A few things to point out:

• 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