For how much Ben Gabler talked about Rocket.net’s independence, it’s ironic he sold out to hosting.com who falls under the World Host Group umbrella (described as “EIG on steroids).”

Hosting. Com is the worst — Hosting.com has been described as “the worst“

Looking back, maybe it’s not considering his track record and what happened to HostGator + HostNine after they were sold to EIG. I was just hoping this time would be different (which is a big reason I became one of their top affiliates). But with up to 76% of affiliate sales declined and a $3,000 sale paying just $150, I think their affiliate program is very shady. I do my best not to be a sellout, but I’ve never seen anything like this and I’ve been a blogger/affiliate since 2013.

Hey @ben_gabler and @RocketDotNet, is a 76% reversal rate on 100 affiliate sales normal? Also, why did Ben just change his Instagram photo? I wanted to see how big that stack of cash is on that private jet now that you sold out to https://t.co/gOyXw0pyRb. pic.twitter.com/pJmP4GPLNe

— Tom Dupuis (@TheDupMan) October 17, 2025

Ben makes himself available on his personal social media accounts, so go check out his Facebook and Instagram where you can see him flying around in a jet with stacks of cash.

Meanwhile, Rocket.net grows to no. 167 on Inc’s 2025 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies. And despite Rocket.net’s affiliate program having the highest reversal rates I’ve seen, I’m told hosting.com (now powered by Rocket.net) will be a high converting product.

If this is how Rocket.net treats affiliates, you can imagine what could happen to customers now that they’re owned by one of the biggest conglomerates in the industry.

So no, I don’t think the future of Rocket.net is bright. Maybe for owners, but not for customers or affiliates. Have you read the Reddit feedback on the acquisition, hosting.com, World Host Group, and A2 Hosting (who also got acquired)? Despite what Rocket.net might tell you, I agree with KnownHost CEO Daniel Pearson who predicts they will sell to a new owner in 1 or 2 years.

Also, if you’re using dual Intel Xeon E5-2667 v2 CPUs from 2013, you’re not the fastest hosting. You’re actually the ~410th fastest in multithreading— a key metric for concurrency.

2 x intel(r) xeon(r) cpu e5 2667 v2 @ 3. 30ghz (32 cores) — A 2021 article by Rocket.net says they use **2x Intel Xeon E5-2667 v2 CPUs**

[dual cpu] intel xeon e5 2667 v2 @ 3. 30ghz — Which are **~410th fastest in multi-CPU CPUs**

Intel® xeon® processor e5 2667 v2 end of servicing updates date — And reached the **end of servicing updates date in 2020**

Pretty sure my site was hosted on one of those 2013 CPUs (but who knows, they wouldn’t tell me). Because after moving to a newer AMD EPYC 9474F CPU which is ~29th fastest and use DDR5 RAM + PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs (ScalaHosting’s VPS), Rocket.net was slower across the board.

Even before setting anything up, my wp-admin was ~2x faster. After setting up Redis + FlyingCDN, my results were better in both Hosting Benchmark Tool and PHP Vitals. If you’ve ever clicked through my site, it’s faster than ever. Again, what I heard isn’t what I’m seeing.

Performance Benchmarks

Rocket. Net wp hosting benchmark tool (2) — Rocket.net (Hosting Benchmark Tool)

Rocket. Net php vitals — Rocket.net (PHP Vitals)

Scalahosting wp hosting benchmark tool (2) — ScalaHosting (Hosting Benchmark Tool)

Scalahosting php vitals — ScalaHosting (PHP Vitals)

That’s the difference between using CPUs with a 102107 PassMark multithread rating (the industry standard for testing CPU performance) which is ~480% higher vs. those Intel Xeons.

I replaced Rocket.net’s Cloudflare Enterprise with FlyingCDN which unlike Rocket.net’s, supports image optimization via Mirage/Polish. This let me better prioritize hardware from my host and is likely why my site is so much faster… including a ~50ms global TTFB versus 100ms.

I suspected Rocket.net’s 100ms global TTFB was mainly from Cloudflare Enterprise, but with FlyingCDN, I would rather have fast hosting hardware.

With low bandwidth limits (along with issues related to performance, ownership, and the acqusition), Rocket.net makes no sense for me as a customer and even less as an affiliate.

OMM has been moved off Rocket.net’s servers and I encourage the people I referred to them to do the same.

1. Oakley Capital → World Host Group → Hosting.com → Rocket.net

A few quotes:

“WHG has clearly set their sites on becoming the next EIG” – source.
“Hope you can scale caring while preparing for a financial exit” – source.
“A2 hosting was remarkable for the last 9 years. Not any more!” – source.
“If your host gets acquired by a group like this, you should get out asap” – source.
“I found out A2 was taken over when my price increased by ~50% overnight” – source.
“Milking the [host] for as much money… while spending as little as possible” – source.
“I can guess their style given the cheerful tone of chopping 5% of A2’s workforce” – source.

Tom Strohe (founder of World Host Group) says:

“We are consolidating hosters around the world, more in secondary markets, and putting them in one infrastrucute layer, taking all the synergies, and really making them better and much more profitable.”

2. The Fastest WordPress Hosting (Or Not)

What makes WordPress hosting fast?

CPU: new models, frequency (GHz), PassMark ratings (e.g. multithreading).
RAM: type (DDR5 outperforms DDR4 with higher frequency in MHz).
Storage: type (e.g. NVMe SSDs), PCIe generation (e.g. 5.0), and I/O limits.
Caching: mostly related to your server, cache plugin, and CDN combination.
Dedicated resources: many managed cloud/VPS hosts still use shared resources.

How much does Rocket.net share with you regarding the first 3?

I tried asking them multiple times and they eventually stopped giving me an answer. Probably because as I suggested all along, Cloudflare Enterprise is the secret sauce to a fast TTFB (as long as your host’s hardware doesn’t completely suck). And after moving to a host who does disclose their hardware (along with FlyingCDN), I can confirm at least for me, Rocket.net is definitely not the fastest WordPress host. Even when I preview changes on this post, the difference is obvious.

Rocket. Net 100ms global ttfb — 100ms isn’t hard with FlyingCDN

3. Shared Resources Except On Enterprise Plans

Those 32 CPU cores + 128GB RAM are shared (not dedicated).

Rocket. Net enterprise hosting — You have to use their $649/month+ Enterprise hosting to get dedicated resources

I’d rather have 2 CPU cores + 4GB RAM to myself than shared resources, especially if it meant getting CPU resources from those 2013 CPUs. Another reason I think my site wasn’t super fast.

4. Too Many Limits On Resources, Control Panel, Transparency

Resource Limits

Only 50GB bandwidth on their lowest plan
And just 10GB storage on their lowest plan
250k monthly visits on their lowest plan (still better than Kinsta/WPE though)

Control Panel Limits

No full root access
No OpenLiteSpeed
Virtually no resource monitoring
Virtually no transparency on what hardware is used
Many lacking features for advanced users/developers

To add insult to injury, Rocket.net asked me to test hosting.com’s control panel and give feedback on it. Maybe they want to be the next cPanel alternative. I already have one; SPanel.

5. FlyingPress Over A Free WP Rocket License

Why did Rocket.net partner with WP Rocket when FlyingPress is #1 in Chrome’s UX report?

Probably because they’re competitors.

FlyingPress is usually first to release new features while WP Rocket trails. You can see this by searching “New:” in the FlyingPress changelog, then do the same for WP Rocket. If you haven’t seen my cache plugin sheet, it shows you why I highly prefer FlyingPress.

6. Replacing Cloudflare Enterprise With FlyingCDN

Gijo Varghese (FlyingPress creator) has always been ahead of the curb since the days of his Flying Plugins which always had great reviews, and FlyingPress + FlyingCDN are no different.

If you’ve read my CDN comparisons, I like FlyingCDN because of Gijo Varghese’s reputation, it supports critical features I look for in a Cloudflare Enterprise integration, and you can use any host you want. And unlike Rocket.net’s, supports image optimization through Mirage + Polish.

Rocket.net’s Cloudflare Enterprise is still great and still much better than Cloudways, Kinsta, and WP Engine’s integrations. But now I have to use Rocket.net’s hosting which… you know.

Key Features

Full page caching – caches HTML and can reduce TTFB by ~72% alone.
Argo Smart Routing + Tiered Cache – can reduce TTFB by another 33% by detecting real-time traffic congestion and routing traffic through faster network paths (like a GPS). Great for traffic spikes and reduces requests to the origin server. FlyingCDN and Rocket use Tiered Cache to further reduce latency/origin requests.

Argo latency reduction

Prioritized routing – optimizes paths for critical traffic and reduces latency. For WooCommerce, this can mean transactions, customer logins, and product pages.
Load balancing – re-routes traffic from unhealthy origin servers to healthy origins.
Enterprise WAF – scans every request before it hits your server. The Enterprise WAF has a more advanced firewall, bot protection, and custom rule set (OWASP).
Early Hints – sends early preload & preconnect hints to reduce server wait time.
Network – Cloudflare’s network is one of the largest and fastest with 330 PoPs (points of presence) and data transfer speeds of 405 Tbps (terabytes per second).

7. My Last “Support” Experience Was The Worst So Far

The issues with the declined affiliate sales, slow CPUs, and “forgotten conversations” about Rocket.net’s independence despite them now being owned by hosting.com remain unresolved.

No accountability and no apology. But after I called him out through email, he chose not to work with me, then changed his Instagram photo for damage control. That tells you everything.

8. Hello ScalaHosting

I’ve been talking about ScalaHosting for a while, and now that they recently added the new CPUs (plus Rocket.net getting acquired), finally moving OMM over to them just made sense.

I can get better performance on a mere 2 CPU core + 4GB RAM server. And while they support OpenLiteSpeed, I’m still using Apache which integrates better with FlyingPress + FlyingCDN. I can also scale CPU cores/RAM as needed and SPanel is night and day vs. Rocket.net’s Mission Control control panel as far as features goes. And while they fix performance, price/bandwidth, and control panel issues with Rocket.net, support is generally not as good as Rocket.net’s was.

Most importantly, they’re independently owned which is a big reason my conversions have always been higher than most affiliates; I steer people away from conglomerates, not to them. Plus, why would I put my reputation on the line just to have my affiliate sales reversed?

No more Rockets for me.

Cheers,
Tom