ScalaHosting Review: Top ~3% Fastest CPUs, FlyingCDN’s Cloudflare Enterprise, And Lightweight SPanel Outperform Both Rocket.net/Cloudways And I Saved $58/Mo

I’m always hunting for the fastest hosting with the lowest price.

So when ScalaHosting added AMD EPYC 9474F CPUs ranked 38th/1245 fastest (top ~3% in PassMark) with DDR5 RAM + PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs, it was a massive upgrade over Rocket.net’s Intel Xeon CPUs which rank 400th+, are from 2013, and only support up to DDR3 RAM and PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSDs (which are ~4x slower). This is why my site/admin weren’t fast despite a 100ms global TTFB with Cloudflare Enterprise. Faster CPUs/RAM/storage + Cloudflare Enterprise = Yes.

While Rocket.net and other “premium” hosts charge $100/mo for 300GB bandwidth and are backed by private equity (hosting.com buying Rocket.net was my final straw), ScalaHosting’s VPS has no extra limits outside of CPU cores/RAM/storage and they’re independently owned.

This costs me $42/mo ($27/mo for Scala’s Build #1 VPS + ~$15/mo for FlyingCDN). I could also host more websites without being limited by arbitrary website/bandwidth/visit limits because ScalaHosting’s VPS has no extra limits and SPanel requires ~2x less resources than cPanel (and is nearly visually identical). Which explains why after moving, my resource usage averaged ~4%.

Every benchmark improved and my site/admin load faster than ever. I recommend the Hosting Benchmark Tool plugin which tests CPU/RAM/storage performance instead of TTFB (time to first byte doesn’t isolate hosting performance because it also tests CDN and caching). But even my global TTFB is averaging ~50ms (as always, test 3 times to ensure resources are cached and served from the closest Cloudflare data center). Scores in PHP Vitals also improved.

 
This was so effective that after I originally published this review, a swarm of people took this route. Which is how I know people are happy with my recommendation because my affiliate commissions skyrocketed to a 88% conversion rate while Rocket.net’s was as low as 15.8%.

Chris and Vlad are the guys behind ScalaHosting who are night and day compared to other hosts/CEOs I’ve previously worked with. I’ve probably emailed them 200 times (+Google Meets) after bombarding them with technical questions, many of which you’ll see in my spreadsheets.

 

1. VPS vs. Entry Cloud Plan

VPS plans can scale CPU cores/RAM/storage while Entry Cloud has 2 CPU cores + 2GB RAM and can only scale storage. Be sure to remove any storage you don’t need and use the 10% off code.

VPS + Entry Cloud have no limits besides the CPU cores/RAM/storage you choose. This is huge because shared plans have CPU limits (like all shared hosting), some VPS’ do have hidden limits (like SiteGround’s + Hostinger’s), and Rocket.net/Kinsta/WPE have different (but still low) limits.

 

2. Set Up Your VPS In 8 Steps

Step 1: Choose your plan, data center, and customize resources at checkout. You shouldn’t need add-ons with a free backup plugin and the LiteSpeed add-on is for LiteSpeed Enterprise. They do a 30-day money back guarantee (full refund) and anytime guarantee (partial refund).

Step 2: Once signed up, you’ll get an email to set up SPanel.

In SPanel, create an account and add your domain/login details. If you’re taking them up on free migrations (I did and it went smooth), open a ticket and provide them with your old host’s login details. Get familiar with SPanel while you’re waiting for ScalaHosting to move your site, watch their SPanel YouTube tutorials or you can request an SPanel demo if you’re still deciding.

If you’re migrating your site(s) yourself, nameservers are found under Server Information.

Step 3: Request Redis from ScalaHosting’s support (or use Memcached which is installed automatically by default). If you’re doing this yourself, use the Redis Object Cache plugin for FlyingPress or LiteSpeed Cache (Cache → Object → Object Cache). Select Redis and use port 6379. If you have multiple sites, each one should have a unique Redis Database ID (0, 1, 2, etc). Once Redis is set up, purge the object cache and ensure the plugin you used shows it’s working.

Step 4: Run a benchmark in Hosting Benchmark Tool to test CPU/RAM/storage performance (storage performance is reflected in filesystem) and object cache. You should see a noticeable difference when clicking through your site/admin even before setting up FlyingCDN thanks to ScalaHosting’s CPUs/RAM/storage. The plugin developer (Anton Aleksandrov who is a reader) updated it after my initial tests comparing Rocket.net — I believe based on George’s feedback from ScalaHosting when he was running tests for me (this is why my new report is even better).

Step 5: I recommend keeping your web server as Apache (works great with FlyingPress + FlyingCDN) but you can switch to OpenLiteSpeed (or Nginx) in the Web Server Manager.

Add the code to your .htaccess file, then restart the server in SPanel (Server Management → Restart Server). This is required to manually clear the cache, otherwise you’ll get 404 errors.

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^/index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

Step 6: Configure FlyingPress (the #1 cache plugin for optimizing core web vitals) and FlyingCDN which is better than Cloudways’ Cloudflare Enterprise and Kinsta/SiteGround’s CDN.

Once done, test TTFB in Flying TTFB or KeyCDN. Always run 3 tests to ensure accurate results.

Step 7: Configure UpdraftPlus so you don’t have to pay for premium backups.

Step 8: If you have multiple sites you want to host on the same server, you’ll be able to set custom resource limits, disable certain features, and add users to SPanel with limited access.

 

3. Don’t Sleep On Shared Plans

I couldn’t tell you a single shared host who uses fast processors with DDR5 RAM and PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs, besides maybe MechanicWeb. Most hosts (especially shared hosts) don’t disclose hardly anything about their CPUs + specs, so Scala’s stack (along with LiteSpeed Enterprise and SPanel) is definitely one of the best options and why I put them #1 in my shared hosting sheet.

Compared to most shared hosts, they have generous limits and got a bump in CPU usage.

These use LiteSpeed Enterprise, so you’ll use my LiteSpeed Cache tutorial to configure the settings with your CDN of choice (e.g. QUIC.cloud’s standard plan, APO, or Super Page Cache).

 

4. AMD EPYC 9474F CPUs On All Plans

Around the same time Rocket.net was acquired by hosting.com, Chris (ScalaHosting’s CEO) emailed me saying they added AMD EPYC 9474F CPUs with DDR5 RAM + PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs which are now used on all data centers. With PassMark ranking them 38th/1245 fastest server CPUs, we can already assume these are much faster than the high majority of WordPress hosts.

Including Hostinger’s AMD EPYC 9354P CPUs, SiteGround’s Intel Xeon Gold 6268CL CPUs (if using Google’s default N2 CPUs), WP Engine and Elementor’s Intel Xeon Gold 6253CL (if using Google’s default C2 CPUs), Rocket.net’s dual Intel Xeon E5-2667 v2 CPUs, ChemiCloud’s AMD EPYC 9354 CPUs, HostGator’s AMD Opteron 6376 CPUs, and NameCheap’s AMD EPYC 7742 CPUs. DigitalOcean + Vultr High Frequency are usually fast, but not when you put them on Cloudways.

Just like shopping for any computer, fast WordPress hosting means shopping for fast CPUs/RAM/storage with plenty of resources (and no throttling from hidden resource limits).

I’ve already done the research in my spreadsheets, but feel free to do your own!

 

5. SPanel Is Similar To cPanel But ~2x Lighter

SPanel is similar to cPanel, except it:

Their YouTube playlist has a lot of tutorials or request a demo.

 

6. Independently Owned By Chris And Vlad (Not Private Equity)

With World Host Group and Newfold Digital buying out hosts left and right (more recently, Rocket.net, A2, and FastComet), ScalaHosting’s independence is honestly my favorite thing about them. It was co-founded by Chris, Vlad, and Lyubomir who I’m in close touch with and not only genuinely care about the business, but don’t appear to be selling out anytime soon.

I don’t need to explain why I don’t like private equity. Most popular hosts are backed by it (including Cloudways, Hostinger, Kinsta, WP Engine) which is probably why they’re “popular.”

 

7. Price Breakdown (Higher Renewals Are The Biggest Downside)

Their hosting (including VPS plans) have a shared hosting pricing model with cheap intro prices for 1 or 3 years, then about 200% higher renewals. Can’t complain about this too much though considering even after renewal, it should be less than Cloudways/SiteGround.

On SiteGround cloud, a 4 CPU core + 8GB RAM server is $100/mo and adding just 1GB RAM costs a whopping $10/month. You’ll pay ~$4/mo for malware scans, $14.99/mo for their CDN which is inferior to Cloudflare, $30/site migrations, and $5/mo if you want premium backups.

On Cloudways, a 3 vCPU + 8GB RAM Vultr High Frequency server is $118/mo. You get a lot of storage, but a waste of money if you don’t need it since you can’t scale resources individually.

Cloudways has lots of complaints about 100% CPU usage, so if you wanted a CPU Optimized server with 4 vCPUs + 8GB RAM, it’s actually $141/mo. Add the cost of add-ons like $4/mo per site for malware scans via Imunify360 and $5/mo per site for a restricted Cloudflare Enterprise.

Hostinger’s VPS is so cheap because of low CPU limits and is unmanaged. Plus, scam reports!

MechanicWeb’s VPS includes cPanel Solo and OpenLiteSpeed, but not a security solution, so you’ll need Imunify360. KnownHost’s VPS doesn’t include cPanel/OpenLiteSpeed/Imunify360, so you’ll need 2-3 extra licenses. And neither VPS lets you scale cores, RAM, storage individually.

Here’s the promo code again for +10% off: OMM10

Cheers,
Tom