Top Fast WooCommerce Hosting Options Compared

Are you tired of watching your WooCommerce store load at a snail’s pace? Do you find yourself losing customers due to slow server speeds? Fear not! In the world of high-speed eCommerce, fast and reliable hosting is the key to success. But with so many hosting providers out there, how do you know which one to choose?

In this article, we’ll dive deep into the world of WooCommerce hosting and explore the fastest options available. We’ll cover everything from what makes a fast WooCommerce host to the benefits of managed hosting, and we’ll even share our own performance test results to help you make an informed decision.

Matias Saggiorato, CTO at Saucal, has more thoughts to share about finding the right WooCommerce host for your store:

When finding hosts, you need to look into the resources your site will get allocated with. Some things to look into are PHP Worker Amount, CPU Cores assigned, Memory Assigned (Total, and per PHP Worker), and Object Cache solution (eg: Redis is typically way faster than Memcached).

If containerized, networking speed between containers. This is especially true on mid-complexity WooCommerce sites and above.

WordPress and WooCommerce have very different needs when it comes to server requirements, and it’ll vastly depend on the traffic and complexity of your site. You may not need much to start with, but depending on your growth you’ll need to look these topics to make the best decision.

Problem is, not all of these things are freely advertised by most hosting companies, and you’ll likely bounce from provider to provider, until you find the right one for you.

6 of the fastest WooCommerce hosting providers

In our quest to find the fastest WooCommerce hosting options, we conducted performance tests on several popular providers. Here are the hosting providers we compared in our study:

1. Saucal + Convesio
2. WP VIP
3. Kinsta
4. Nexcess
5. WP Engine
6. Cloudways

Here’s an overview of the results: 

Here’s how we arrived at our rankings:

1. Saucal + Convesio: Ranked #1 for its excellent balance of speed, consistency, and WooCommerce specialization. While not the fastest in raw metrics, it offers the best overall package for most WooCommerce stores, with room to scale and consistent performance across various loads.
2. WP VIP: Offers the highest raw performance but ranks second due to some inconsistency on cold starts and its enterprise-level focus, which may be overkill for many WooCommerce stores.
3. Kinsta: Provides good performance with reasonable pricing, making it a solid choice for many users.
4. Nexcess: Offers similar performance to Kinsta but with a higher drop rate under extreme loads.
5. WP Engine: Decent performance but struggles more under high load compared to higher-ranked options.
6. Cloudways: While affordable, it lags behind in performance metrics compared to other options.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these providers and their performance metrics based on our testing.

1. Saucal + Convesio

Saucal is a managed WooCommerce hosting provider that offers superior performance and customer support. 

It is an excellent option for businesses looking for a hosting company that is specifically optimized for WooCommerce. 

Here’s the overview of the speed tests: 

• Max successful rate: 100 concurrent checkouts
• Checkout rate: 7/s
• Average response time: 4.7s
• Notable: 500 checkouts ramping up over 1 minute at 7.2 checkouts/s
• Grade: A

Some of the best advantages of using Saucal are:

• Saucal offers flexible managed hosting services that cater to new WooCommerce sites and high-revenue WooCommerce stores alike. 
• It has a dedicated expert team that proactively reduces downtime and manages development in a separate secure environment without affecting your production environment. This is a game-changer for businesses that require exceptional uptime and performance.
• Saucal partners with Convesio to enable users to enjoy even greater flexibility when upgrading their store. 
• Convesio offers the most scalable, fastest WordPress hosting, making it an excellent complement to Saucal’s managed WooCommerce services. With Convesio’s cutting-edge technology, Saucal users can experience faster website speeds, higher conversion rates, and improved page load times.
• Saucal has a dedicated expert team that proactively manages your website’s performance, ensuring that your website is always running smoothly. 
• The team performs automated user tests on your critical customer journeys, so you can be sure that any deployment doesn’t break anything critical.
• Saucal also offers excellent customer support, providing its users with access to a knowledgeable and helpful support team.

In terms of pricing, Saucal offers several flexible pricing plans, including a starter plan for beginners and an enterprise plan for high-revenue WooCommerce stores.

With its dedicated expert team, partnership with Convesio, and excellent customer support, Saucal offers superior web hosting performance and uptime. Its many features, such as automated user testing and a separate secure development environment, make it an excellent choice for businesses that require exceptional website management.

2. Kinsta

Kinsta is a managed WordPress hosting provider that is a great option for businesses looking for high-performance hosting that can help to boost user experience, SEO, and store revenue. 

Here’s an overview of the speed test results: 

• Plan tested: Business 1 ($75/month)
• Max successful rate: 100 concurrent checkouts (rate limited)
• Checkout rate: 3.7/s
• Average response time: 8s
• Notable: 30% drop rate at 1,000 requests over 1 minute
• Grade: C

Some of the advantages of Kinsta include:

• High-performance CDN, powered by Cloudflare, and spanning over 275 cities across the USA, Europe, Australia, and Asia, which allows users to access your WooCommerce store from anywhere in the world. This can help to improve the speed and performance of your website, which can lead to higher conversion rates and improved user experience.
• Kinsta uses server-level caching to ensure that your customers always benefit from your site’s most up-to-date and high-performing version.

• Excellent customer support, with a team of experts available 24/7 to help with any issues that you may encounter. 
• The host offers a staging environment that allows you to test changes before deploying them to the live site, which can help to reduce the risk of errors or downtime.

In terms of pricing, Kinsta’s plans are on the higher end of the spectrum, but they offer good value for the money. The plans are based on the number of monthly website visits, with options ranging from 20,000 visits per month to 3,000,000 visits per month. 

Each plan includes free CDN and SSL, as well as daily backups.

One of the potential downsides of Kinsta is that it does not offer email hosting, which means that you will need to use a separate service for email. Additionally, Kinsta’s plans are based on the number of monthly website visits, which means that if your site experiences a sudden surge in traffic, you may need to upgrade to a higher plan.

3. Nexcess

Nexcess offers a WooCommerce hosting plan focused on sales performance. The company’s key USP is that it has a dedicated support team that can quickly troubleshoot and resolve any issues that may arise.

Here’s an overview of the speed test results: 

• Plan tested: WooCommerce Merchant ($164/month)
• Max successful rate: 100 concurrent checkouts
• Checkout rate: 3.4/s
• Average response time: 8s
• Notable: 83.4% drop rate at 1,000 concurrent checkouts
• Grade: C

Advantages of Nexcess as a hosting provider include:

• A strong commitment to fast and reliable hosting services. 
• WooCommerce plans that include features to help to improve your site’s performance, user experience, and search engine rankings, ultimately leading to increased sales.
• Free SSL certificates, a content delivery network (CDN), and server-level caching that help ensure your store is always running quickly and efficiently.
• A range of eCommerce-specific features, such as advanced product search, custom checkout fields, and the ability to customize shipping options.
• A dedicated support team with an average response time of just 59 seconds and which is available 24/7.

One potential downside of Nexcess is its pricing. Their WooCommerce hosting plan is more expensive than some other options on this list, but it comes with a range of features and a dedicated support team that may be worth the investment for businesses with high sales volumes. 

Additionally, Nexcess does not offer a free trial, which means that potential users cannot test the service before committing to a plan.

4. WP Engine

WP Engine is a popular WooCommerce hosting provider that is known for its fast and reliable hosting services. 

Here’s a summary of our speed test findings: 

• Plan tested: Scale Plan ($194/month)
• Max successful rate: 100 over 1 minute
• Checkout rate: 1.5/s
• Average response time: 2.8s
• Notable: 54% drop rate at 200 checkouts over 1 minute
• Grade: D

Some of its main advantages include:

• Its proprietary frontend caching system, EverCache, which helps to improve site speed optimization. This caching system allows your WooCommerce store to load quickly and efficiently, which can improve the user experience and boost sales.

• Scalable packages to choose from, including a StartUp plan that comes with automatic plugin updates and one-click store creation. This makes it easy for businesses of all sizes to get started with WooCommerce and create a professional-looking store without having to worry about the technical details.
• High-performance carts, store maintenance, and additional site encryption, depending on your plan. These features can help to improve the security and reliability of your WooCommerce store, which is essential for businesses that rely heavily on their online sales.

On the flip side, WP Engine has a relatively small number of data centers compared to some other providers, which could potentially impact load times for users in certain regions.

Another potential drawback of WP Engine is its lack of flexibility when it comes to plugins and customization. They have a strict policy on the types of plugins that can be used on their platform, which can be a limitation for businesses that require more flexibility in their WooCommerce store.

5. Cloudways

Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform renowned for its agility and performance, making it an ideal choice for WooCommerce stores aiming for lightning-fast loading speeds and seamless user experiences.

Here’s how Cloudways performed in our speed tests: 

• Plan tested: 4 core Digital Ocean server ($99/month)
• Max successful rate: 100 concurrent checkouts
• Checkout rate: 1.3/s
• Average response time: 23s
• Grade: F

Here is an overview of some of Cloudway’s advantages:

• Cloudways empowers users with the freedom to select their preferred cloud infrastructure provider, offering flexibility and scalability tailored to the unique needs of their WooCommerce store.
• With Cloudways, server management tasks such as security updates, backups, and optimization are expertly handled, ensuring peak performance and uptime for your eCommerce site.
• Leveraging features like built-in caching, SSD-based storage, and customizable server configurations, Cloudways guarantees optimal speed and performance for WooCommerce websites.
• Cloudways offers scalable hosting plans, allowing seamless adjustment of server resources as your website traffic and business expand.

One potential drawback of Cloudways is that certain advanced features, such as automated backups and premium support, entail additional costs beyond the base hosting plan, for example, Cloudways charge $0.033 per GB of backup storage.

6. WPVIP

WPVIP offers a range of packages tailored to suit different business needs. 

With WPVIP, businesses can create and manage their WooCommerce stores with features such as dedicated support, enhanced security, and high-performance hosting.

Here’s how WPVIP performed in our speed tests: 

• Plan tested: Sandbox (equivalent to Managed WooCommerce VIP Powered)
• Max successful rate: 2,000 concurrent checkouts
• Checkout rate: 50.4/s
• Average Response Time: 2.9s
• Notable: Achieved 28.9 checkouts/s with 2,000 checkouts ramping up over 1 minute
• Grade: S (Superb) 

Benefits of WPVIP include:

• Customized packages based on your website traffic and WordPress applications, ensuring that your hosting plan is perfectly suited to your business needs.
• Range of helpful features such as dedicated support, enhanced security, and high-performance hosting that help to keep your site secure and performing at its best.
• It has an analytics package known as Parse.ly, which can help businesses to assess their ROI and develop their content strategy. This can be a useful tool for businesses looking to optimize their WooCommerce store for increased conversion rates and revenue.

Having said that, WPVIP’s focus on larger enterprise clients may not make it the best option for smaller businesses or startups.

How we tested WooCommerce hosting speed

To provide you with accurate and reliable information, we conducted extensive performance tests on various WooCommerce hosting providers. Here’s an overview of our testing methodology:

1. Test environment: We set up a clean environment with a demo WooCommerce site, including:
   • A standard set of images
   • A database with 11,000 orders and 2,000 products
2. Test process: We focused on testing concurrent checkouts per second, as this is one of the most critical parts of the purchasing process. Our tests were designed to:
   • Generate increasingly larger amounts of checkouts concurrently
   • Measure the maximum number of checkouts per second without errors
   • Assess response times and error rates under high load
3. Tools used: We used Woorricane, our proprietary backend load testing tool, to generate concurrent checkouts and analyze performance.
4. Metrics measured:
   • Maximum number of checkouts per second without errors
   • Average response time
   • Error rate under high load
   • Ability to handle concurrent requests

This rigorous testing process allowed us to gather concrete data on each hosting provider’s performance under real-world conditions.

The result: Which WooCommerce host is the fastest?

While our performance tests show WP VIP leading in raw speed and concurrent checkouts, Saucal + Convesio offers several advantages that make it a compelling choice for many WooCommerce store owners:

• Consistent performance: Unlike WP VIP, which showed some inconsistency with cold starts, Saucal + Convesio demonstrated reliable performance across our tests.
• Scalability for growing businesses: Saucal’s solution efficiently handled 500 checkouts ramping up over 1 minute at 7.2 checkouts/s. This level of performance is more than sufficient for many WooCommerce stores and offers room for growth.
• Specialized WooCommerce focus: The partnership between Saucal and Convesio is specifically tailored for WooCommerce, potentially offering more optimized solutions and expert support for WooCommerce-specific challenges.

Overall, Saucal + Convesio is the winner of our fastest host test, offering a balanced combination of performance, specialization, and potential for growth that could make it the ideal hosting solution.

How to compare the speed of different WooCommerce hosting providers yourself

We’ve already done the hard work of comparing the speed of some of the fastest hosts for you. However, if there are any hosts you want to test out for yourself, here’s how you can construct WooCommerce host speed tests accurately.

1. Select hosting providers

Choose a list of WooCommerce hosting providers you want to test. Make sure to include a variety of providers (shared hosting, VPS, managed WooCommerce hosting, etc.).

2. Prepare a test site

Create a standardized WooCommerce test site. This site should include:

• A predefined theme (preferably a popular, well-coded one).
• A set number of products.
• Some plugins that are commonly used with WooCommerce.
• Sample orders and customer data.
• Standardized images and media files.

3. Backup your test site

Use a tool like Duplicator, UpdraftPlus, or WP Migrate DB to create a full backup of your test site. This will make it easier to replicate the site across different hosting providers.

4. Sign up for hosting accounts

Sign up for the hosting plans you wish to test. Ensure you choose equivalent plans in terms of pricing and resources to make the comparison fair.

5. Migrate the test site to each host

Use your backup tool to migrate the test site to each hosting provider. Ensure that each site is set up identically, including the same domain or subdomain structure, if possible.

6. Measure baseline performance

Before performing any optimization, measure the baseline performance of each site. Use tools such as:

• GTmetrix
• Pingdom
• Google PageSpeed Insights
• WebPageTest

Record metrics such as load time, time to first byte (TTFB), and overall performance scores.

7. Conduct load testing

Use a load testing tool like Loader.io or Blitz to simulate traffic and see how each host handles load. Measure:

• Response times under load.
• Maximum concurrent users before performance degrades.
• Number of requests handled.

8. Monitor uptime

Use an uptime monitoring service like UptimeRobot or Pingdom to track the uptime of each site over a set period (e.g., 30 days). This will help you understand the reliability of each hosting provider.

9. Check server response time

Tools like Bitcatcha or KeyCDN’s performance test can measure server response times from different locations around the world. This helps in assessing the global reach and speed of each host.

10. Analyze results

Compile all the data collected from the tests and analyze:

• Load time averages.
• Performance under load.
• Uptime percentage.
• Server response times.

Switch to Saucal’s fast & reliable Managed WooCommerce

Our comprehensive analysis of WooCommerce hosting providers has revealed that true performance goes beyond raw speed. While some hosts excel in specific areas, Saucal + Convesio stands out as the best overall solution for most WooCommerce stores.

What sets Saucal apart:

1. Optimal balance of speed and consistency
2. Specialized WooCommerce optimizations
3. Scalability to grow with your business
4. Expert support tailored to ecommerce needs

Saucal’s partnership with Convesio brings you cutting-edge containerized hosting technology combined with deep WooCommerce expertise. This powerful combination ensures your store not only loads fast but also performs reliably under various traffic conditions.

Take the first step towards faster load times, higher conversions, and stress-free scaling. Contact Saucal now to get started with your optimized WooCommerce hosting solution.

FAQs

1. What are the different types of hosting plans?

There are several types of hosting plans to consider for your WooCommerce site. Each type has its own advantages and disadvantages, so it’s important to choose the one that best fits your needs.

The most common types of hosting plans include:

Shared Hosting

• Description: Multiple websites share a single server’s resources (CPU, RAM, bandwidth).
• Pros: Affordable, suitable for small businesses and personal sites.
• Cons: Can lead to slower load times and reduced performance during high traffic periods.

Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting

• Description: Users share a physical server but have their own virtual server environment.
• Pros: More control over the hosting environment, scalable resources, improved performance.
• Cons: More expensive than shared hosting, requires some technical expertise.

Dedicated Hosting

• Description: Users rent an entire physical server for their website.
• Pros: Complete control, high performance, increased security, full customization.
• Cons: Most expensive option, requires technical expertise to manage.

Cloud Hosting

• Description: Websites are hosted on a network of interconnected servers.
• Pros: High scalability and reliability, resources can be easily allocated as needed.
• Cons: More expensive than shared hosting but more affordable than dedicated hosting.

Managed Hosting

• Description: The hosting provider manages the server hardware and software.
• Pros: Fully optimized environment, good security, 24/7 customer support.
• Cons: Typically more expensive than unmanaged hosting options.

Reseller Hosting

• Description: Users can sell hosting services to their own clients under their brand name.
• Pros: Potential for additional revenue, control over hosting environment, turnkey solution.
• Cons: Requires effort to manage client accounts and provide support.

Each type of hosting has its own advantages and is suited to different needs, so choose the one that best fits your requirements.

2. Why should I choose a dedicated WooCommerce host?

As a WooCommerce store owner, your website is the backbone of your operation. Choosing the right hosting provider is crucial, and a dedicated WooCommerce host offers several advantages for high-performance, secure, scalable, and fast WordPress hosting:

High Performance

• Reason: WooCommerce websites generate high traffic and transactions, straining the hosting environment.
• Benefit: Optimized specifically for WooCommerce, ensuring fast load times and improved uptime, leading to a better user experience and competitive edge.

Security

• Reason: eCommerce sites handle sensitive customer information, making them targets for cyber attacks.
• Benefit: Specialized security measures, continuous monitoring, daily backups, free SSL certificates, and other features to protect your customers’ data and your business reputation.

Reliable Customer Support

• Reason: WooCommerce sites have unique needs and issues.
• Benefit: Access to specialized support from experts familiar with WooCommerce, offering help with installation, configuration, troubleshooting, and customized solutions.

Opportunity for Customization

• Reason: Greater control over the server environment allows for optimization.
• Benefit: Ability to use specialized plugins, themes, and server settings tailored to eCommerce sites, improving SEO and online marketing results.

A dedicated WooCommerce host ensures your site runs smoothly, securely, and efficiently, helping you focus on growing your business.

3. Why should I avoid certain hosting providers for WooCommerce?

Choosing the wrong hosting provider can result in slow website performance, security issues, and lost revenue. Here are key characteristics of providers to avoid:

1. Shared Hosting Environments

• Issue: Providers like Bluehost, SiteGround, and GoDaddy use shared hosting, where multiple websites share the same server resources.
• Consequence: This can lead to slower performance and longer load times, especially during peak traffic periods.

2. Limited Server Resources

• Issue: Shared hosting plans often come with restricted CPU, RAM, and disk space.
• Consequence: Limited resources can hinder the performance of large eCommerce sites with high traffic volumes.

3. Poor Customer Support

• Issue: Users often report subpar customer support from shared hosting providers.
• Consequence: Poor support can be frustrating and time-consuming when dealing with technical issues.

To ensure optimal performance, choose a hosting provider that offers dedicated resources, adequate server capacity, and reliable customer support for your WooCommerce site.

4. How do I migrate my site to WooCommerce?

Migrating your site from one hosting provider to another, for example, from Shopify to WooCommerce, can be a daunting task, but with the right preparation and tools, it can be a smooth process. 

Many good hosting providers offer WooCommerce migration services, which can help you move your website seamlessly to a new hosting platform, without breaking things. 

However, if you are migrating your WooCommerce site by yourself, here are some steps you can take to migrate your site.

• Back up all of your website files, including databases, media files, and other content. This will ensure that you don’t lose any data during the migration process.

• Set up your new hosting account and install any necessary software or plugins.
• Use an FTP client or file manager to transfer your website files from your old host to your new host. This can include transferring your website’s database, media files, and other content.

• Update your domain name servers to point to your new host. This will ensure that visitors can access your website at its new location. 
• Check for broken links, missing content, and other issues that may have occurred during the migration.

• Monitor your website after the migration is complete to ensure that it continues to run smoothly. 
• Keep an eye out for any performance issues, security threats, or other problems that may arise.

Having a reliable and fast WooCommerce hosting provider can make the migration process much easier and more seamless. Look for a hosting provider that offers specialized WooCommerce features, excellent customer support, and scalable plans to meet the needs of your growing eCommerce site.

Switch to Saucal’s fast & reliable managed WooCommerce services today, and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with knowing your online store is in the best hands possible!