3 years ago, I bought NameHero’s Turbo WordPress plan and would take it over SiteGround, Hostinger, Bluehost, GoDaddy, or any of those other “mainstream” hosts any day of the week.

If you compare NameHero’s specs to other shared hosts, you’ll see 3 key differences:

You usually get more CPU cores/RAM.
Their US data center uses NVMe (faster than most host’s SATA SSDs).
You get Redis + MariaDB which are also faster than Memcached + MySQL.

And since they use LiteSpeed, you’ll use LiteSpeed Cache + QUIC.cloud CDN (one of the fastest setups on a budget). LiteSpeed Cache is faster than both WP Rocket and SiteGround Optimizer with features like server-side caching, delaying JavaScript, and a faster way to remove unused CSS. Then you use it to connect Redis + QUIC.cloud’s CDN to improve TTFB with QUIC’s HTML caching. High CPU usage is also less likely since LiteSpeed is more efficient than Apache (what most hosts use). A faster site + TTFB, less CPU issues, and usually cheaper? Makes sense to me.

Ryan (NameHero’s CEO) is also a genuinely down to earth guy if you watch his YouTube videos. Their servers are reliable and typically have less downtime + scheduled maintenance on their network status page with solid support. For LiteSpeed hosting in the US, it’s hard to beat them.

1. LiteSpeed On All Shared Plans

NameHero uses LiteSpeed servers on all shared plans.

You’ll definitely want to read through my LiteSpeed Cache tutorial which shows you how to configure the settings and connect QUIC.cloud + Redis for optimal performance.

Litespeed vs nginx vs apache — LiteSpeed is faster than NGINX and Apache (source: LiteSpeed)

Litespeed apache cpu usage test — LiteSpeed generally has less CPU usage than Apache

2. NVMe SSDs On All Plans (US Data Center)

NameHero’s data centers are located in the US and EU (Amsterdam). However, only their US data center uses faster NVMe storage – that’s why I mainly recommend them for US-based sites.

If you need a closer data center to your visitors, look at ChemiCloud or FastComet. Both are similar to NameHero with LiteSpeed/cPanel, but ChemiCloud uses NVMe in 9/11 data centers and their Turbo+ Boost add-on scales CPU/RAM from 3/3 to 6/6 (so you’re not stuck with the same resources in case you get more traffic). On NameHero, you can also use QUIC.cloud’s paid plan which improves TTFB in multiple global locations by using QUIC’s 83 PoPs with HTML caching. Once QUIC is setup, test your TTFB in 10-40 locations using tools like KeyCDN and SpeedVitals.

3. NameHero Has Better Specs Than “Popular” Hosts

Things To Note:

MariaDB is faster than MySQL.
Redis is faster than Memcached.
NVMe SSDs are faster than SATA SSDs.
LiteSpeed Cache is faster than SG Optimizer.
Using hosting for email takes up more inodes.
CPU cores mainly affect CPU usage, not speed.

View Spreadsheet

I’ve seen quite a few people move from other shared hosts to NameHero:

4. Reliable Uptimes On Network Status Page

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 node 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 does NameHero’s uptimes compare to other hosts?

Hostinger’s status page usually has alarming amounts of maintenance/downtimes.
A2’s major outage was over 2 weeks. At that point, their response doesn’t mean much.
SiteGround’s DNS was blocked for 4 days. On Twitter, they said “there is no blocking on our end” but 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. And SiteGround doesn’t have an uptime status page on their website either.

5. Support Is Better Than SiteGround

NameHero’s support is awesome, but something you should experience yourself. They have phone, live chat, and tickets, and are always been super helpful without insisting on upgrades.

6. VPS Plans Are Too Expensive

NameHero’s VPS plans make you pay an extra $540/year for LiteSpeed, plus another $10-$25/mo for AlmaLinux or CloudLinux. I would either use Scala, Cloudways Vultr HF, or JohnnyVPS instead. Or if you’re willing to get more hands-on, RunCloud or ServerPilot. Like most Hostinger plans, they look good on the outside, but they’re not with lots of complaints.

View Spreadsheet

7. Choose A Plan

I used to always recommend NameHero’s Turbo WordPress plan, but now that NVMe SSDs are used on all plans, you can get away with the Starter/Plus plan for small sites. Just keep in mind Turbo WordPress has higher connection limits (good if you have a decent amount of concurrent visitors), more inodes (good if you’re going to be using them for email hosting, more CPU cores + RAM, and RAID 1 instead of Raid 10. You can view this table on their regular web hosting page.

8. Request A Free Migration

Login to your NameHero account and fill out their migration request form. You get 1 free migration within 30 days, including local testing so you can see your site before it goes live.

Change Nameservers – if you want to do this yourself, skip to 42:12 in their video which shows you how to change nameservers (only needed if you purchased a domain elsewhere). This is in your dashboard → 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.

9. Setup LiteSpeed Cache

Once your site is moved, you’ll want to configure the free LiteSpeed Cache plugin.

LiteSpeed Cache is generally faster than WP Rocket (and definitely faster than SiteGround Optimizer) with more features. For caching, you get server-side caching, Redis integration, and dynamic caching through QUIC.cloud. Plus, it has more features for image optimizations, Guest Mode (great for speeding up your site for first-time visitors, and a faster “remove unused CSS” since you can load used CSS in a separate file. See my full tutorial on configuring the settings.

10. Connect Redis + OPcache

Redis is like Memcached but generally faster.

It’s specifically good for speeding up and reducing CPU usage on WooCommerce sites. OPcache improves PHP performance and can also reduce CPU usage. Both can be enabled in NameHero.

Step 1: In NameHero’s cPanel, go to Select PHP Version → Extensions → activate both.

Step 2: Activate object cache in LiteSpeed Cache’s settings, then select “Redis” for method.

11. Connect QUIC.cloud’s CDN

QUIC.cloud was also designed for LiteSpeed and caches both static/dynamic content on 83 PoPs, improving TTFB by up to 500%. However, you should ideally use QUIC’s paid/standard plan which is $.01-$.08/GB (depending on the region) and usually ends up being cheaper/faster than most CDNs. It’s also needed for image/page optimizations to work in the LiteSpeed Cache plugin with several other benefits (like HTTP/3, Anycast’s smart routing, and DDoS protection).

QUIC’s pricing involves adding credits to your QUIC dashboard which are used for bandwidth and page optimizations. Bandwidth is $.02-$.08/GB depending on the region which is cheaper than most CDNs. You get 200 free credits/month since NameHero uses LiteSpeed Enterprise.

Quic. Cloud credits — NameHero uses the “LiteSpeed Enterprise” tier which includes more credits/bandwidth

Quic. Cloud pop network — QUIC.cloud’s 83+ PoPs

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

Step 2: Enable QUIC.cloud in LiteSpeed Cache’s CDN settings (CDN Mapping should be off).

Step 3: In the General settings, click “link to QUIC.cloud.”

Step 4: View the QUIC dashboard, sign up, and your domain will be added automatically.

Step 5: Click your domain and go to CDN → Enable CDN.

Step 6: Choose a method for connecting the CDN: QUIC.cloud DNS, Cloudflare DNS, or CNAME (external DNS). QUIC and Cloudflare’s DNS are both fast (Cloudflare is usually a top performer on dnsperf.com), but QUIC’s DNS is the easiest and has benefits like more accurate geo-routing.

QUIC.cloud DNS: QUIC.cloud’s DNS is easiest and also uses Anycast. 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.

Change nameservers to quic. Cloud — **QUIC.cloud DNS**: you’re assigned 2 nameservers which you’ll change in your domain registrar

Cloudflare DNS: delete A records for www/non-www in Cloudflare and replace with CNAME from QUIC

Cpanel zone editor — **CNAME**: paste QUIC.cloud’s CNAME record in cPanel → Zone Editor

Step 7: 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 8: Activate the standard plan and select your regions.

12. Other Performance 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+ – NameHero supports PHP 8.2 which you should use if plugins are compatible.
Brotli – faster than Gzip compression and can be activated in the PHP Extension menu.
Memory limit – Elementor recommends 768M for best performance (use at least 512M).
Hotlink protection – stops people from stealing your images and consuming bandwidth.

Replace WP-Cron with a real cron job – reduce CPU usage by disabling wp-cron and scheduling a real cron job. First, disable wp-cron by adding the code to wp-config.php.

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

13. Security

NameHero requires 2FA using Google Authenticator.

They also use Security Shield and Imunify360 , plus QUIC.cloud includes several security features. Between these three, you get a firewall, DDoS protection, and malware protection.

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 Pros & Cons

Pros

LiteSpeed, NVMe, Redis, MariaDB.
Cheaper intro prices for 1-3 years.
LiteSpeed Cache is a great cache plugin.
QUIC.cloud is also a great CDN, especially the paid plan.
Less chance of CPU spikes (LiteSpeed servers are efficient).
More cores/RAM for a better value compared to other hosts.
Storage can be adjusted to be used for your website or email.
Reliable servers with less scheduled maintenance or downtimes.
Support is helpful/responsive and the CEO (Ryan) is a solid dude.

Cons

US + NE data centers only, NVMe only in US.
Lowest 2 shared plans only have 250k inodes.
Must sign up for 3 years to get the cheapest price.
LiteSpeed license costs $540/year on their VPS plans.
High renewal prices after 1-3 years (standard with shared hosting).

Summary

NameHero’s great, I don’t get why people still use other shared hosts like SiteGround and Hostinger. I appreciate your support if you sign up with my aff link (but totally not expected).

Cheers,
Tom

NameHero Review: Faster LiteSpeed Hosting With NVMe Storage On Their US Data Center, Redis, MariaDB, And cPanel