LiteSpeed Hosting as
Cloudways Alternative

Part 4

  • Select the hosting plan with the LiteSpeed Web server and NVMe SSD storage
  • Choose a shared server geographically close to your visitors
  • Don’t go for the Cloudways hosting services – it is the worst value for money
  • Study the list of standard software suite which is provided in this report
  • Recognise that in the current market, the hosting provider size is its liability
  • Further analysis of the hosting providers can be found in our separate report
  • In the US or Europe, host your website with MechanicWeb or HostXNow – the best value providers
The article takes 31 minutes to read
Last modified on July 1st, 2022

This post is a part of our main research article

We wrote our main research article to inform a large community of web designers and business owners about the best inexpensive options for shared WordPress hosting. Our goal is to help you optimise asset delivery to achieve the best Core Web Vitals score by combining fast hardware, advanced security, and optimal caching.
Different WordPress groups on Facebook have the perfect symbiosis and coordination. This is teamwork. Some “experts” will try to convince you to switch to the “best” shared hosting plan with slow hardware, while others will try to convince you that there is nothing faster and more secure (sic!) than an unmanaged Vultr HF VPS on Cloudways. In both cases, affiliate fees are collected by misleading the unsuspecting public and convincing them to switch to the wrong service provider.
Many users are surprised to learn that there is a third option: Premium Shared Hosting providers with hardware as good or better than unmanaged VPSs. With cPanel, server-level malware protection, and LiteSpeed Enterprise, you get a much more secure experience and faster website loading speed from Premium Shared Hosting. For WooCommerce sites, the benefit is even greater. The best providers may not have an army of affiliate warriors behind them, but that does not mean their services are any less attractive.
Our main research article provides a quick overview of the best hosting options currently on the market. The following posts continue our research article.
  • Part 1. We give a detailed overview of the standard software options offered by all reasonable LightSpeed web hosting providers. Before you choose your hosting, you should read this chapter!
  • Part 2. You might read the detailed chapter explaining the cheating and fraudulent schemes of Cloudways and its affiliate community.
  • Part 3. We explain the technical details of our benchmarking study. Read it if you want to quickly test the actual quality of hardware resources provided by your hosting provider.
  • Part 4 (this post). Covers advanced hosting options for extremely busy websites. You should study this chapter if you are determined to switch to VPS hosting.

Managed VPS Hosting

What you can expect

If you are asked to move your site on a virtual private server (VPS), be aware that the monthly fee will substantially increase. You can expect to pay $130 per month for this service, including the fee for the LiteSpeed Web Server Enterprise Site Owner plan  (limited to 8GB RAM on the virtual machine), cPanel and WebHost Manager (WHM), CloudLinux, external backup, and a bunch of other software tools like Softaculous, JetBackup, and imunify360 you get for granted at the shared hosting. Instead of MailChannels, we recommend upgrading with SendGrid services as they offer better value for money. And last but not least, paying a higher bill for VPS means you can rest assured that your Redis installation will be running in a fully secured environment.

Utilisation of CPU on VPS accounts

Good VPS providers do not oversubscribe shared CPU, but their VPS plans are priced accordingly to how many users are on the server. For example, they monitor the average CPU usage on each server to keep it below 60% to avoid the drop in CPU efficiency (see detailed discusssion below). That’s exactly how they monitor CPU consumption for shared hosting plans. Since allocated RAM resources are dedicated, the number of users per server is automatically reduced in VPS plans compared to shared hosting. Before you start asking whether the CPU is fully dedicated, you should expect to find at least four times as much RAM in GB as the number of CPU cores. For example, 8 GB RAM and 2 vCPUs. The majority of providers understand that most users need large CPU spikes, but that their average consumption is not as high. Therefore, such users benefit from the VPS plans with a several times larger but shared consumption of CPU resources. It makes no sense for most users to desire smaller but dedicated CPU resources.
In this post, we will repeatedly emphasise that even dedicated CPU resources can not be used at 100%. A fair share of the dedicated CPU plan is about 60% CPU utilisation. To enable hyper-threading, the software creates two logical CPUs per physical CPU core. VPS providers may sell dedicated logical CPUs, but they are barely more than 50% of the physical CPU core. This topic is discussed in more detail below.
When selecting your VPS configuration, it is important to consider that now you are responsible for controlling the load of your server. You should monitor that average utilisation does not exceed 40% capacity to serve a sudden spike in traffic.  The CPU usage of 30% is close to your fair share on most VPS plans with dedicated RAM, but you will sometimes be allowed a little bit more if other clients are idle with their projects. You also need be ahead of the game and plan for extra visitors when running ads. Terrible things can happen if your website suddenly crashes during an advertising campaign – especially since successful promotions often lead to persistent increases in visitor volume. That could overload servers with less than adequate resources available. Plan with your hosting provider ahead of time so that they’re ready when you need them.

Plan comparison: semi-dedicated vs. VPS

Before you subscribe to VPS, you might want to consider MechanicWeb’s Elite plan for $53 per month for the first year and $71 per month after that. This Semi Dedicated plan is hosted on Ryzen 9 5950x hardware and offers  8 CPU cores and 12 GB RAM. This Semi-Dedicated plan is an interesting and more affordable alternative to VPS hosting, giving you a much more powerful website if you decide to stay with MechanicWeb. MechanicalWeb offers this plan from data centers in Dallas, LA, London and Germany. HostXNow offers a similar Semi-Dedicated Agency plan hosted on a similarly fast and modern Ryzen 9 5900x in datacenters in London and Washington, DC.  If you pay for three years upfront, it will cost around $53 per month.
With MechanicWeb’s or HostXNow’s Semi Dedicated Hosting, you get VPS-like performance on a modern hardware/software bundle for a much lower cost since you don’t have to pay for licenses or manage the server. VPS and Semi-Dedicated Hosting both offer scalability. Upgrading the VPS require a reboot. Semi-Dedicated Hosting can be upgraded seamlessly.
Root access is the main difference between Semi-Dedicated Hosting and VPS. You can use root access to change the VPS’s configuration and to install/uninstall specific software, making VPS plans more customizable. Semi-Dedicated Hosting only supports basic tasks that do not require root access, for example, changing PHP versions, enabling or disabling PHP extensions, and installing WordPress. Most shared hosting providers, including HostXNow and MechanicWeb,  offer jailed SSH access to your shared account. This option is usually blocked by default, and you will need to ask technical support to allow access to your IP address by creating a support ticket.

Various licensing options for software

Learn more about MechanicWeb‘s fully managed VPS plans if you need root access. The HF-48 plan offers 4 CPUs and 8 GB of RAM for $89 per month on the annual plan for the first year. A regular price for an annual subscription is $99 per month. All VPS plans include a cPanel Solo licence (a $15 value directly from cPanel), Softaculous, and WordPress Toolkit Deluxe. It is a good deal for most business customers who do not intend to use the VPS plan for reseller services. A listing of essential licenses is available on the MechanicWeb website. To cover as many as you can, you should budget an extra $40-90 per month.
In order of priority, the following licenses are recommended:
  • LiteSpeed (performance, stability, security, and ease of use)
  • CloudLinux (performance, stability, security, and ease of use)
  • JetBackup (for incremental backup, reducing server load and backup time)
  • ImmunifyAV+ (security and ease of use)
  • KernelCare (security, stability, and ease of use)
  • MailChannels (deliverability of emails)
For a budget-friendly setup, you can use AlmaLinux 8 and OpenLiteSpeed wit DirectAdmin, which all come included for free. Following them in order of priority are:
  • JetBackup (for incremental backup, reducing server load and backup time)
  • ImmunifyAV+ (security and ease of use)
  • KernelCare (security, stability, and ease of use)
Whenever you need to host a dozen or so websites on a VPS, CloudLinux is the obvious choice because it provides OpenVZ VPS-like isolation for each cPanel/DirectAdmin account. cPanel has far fewer hiccups than DirectAdmin. When the client’s budget allows it, hosting providers will recommend cPanel over DirectAdmin. DirectAdmin is offered free of charge by MechanicWeb for resellers/agencies. Hosting companies such as HostXNow and Brixly, however, offer reseller plans that deliver better value for money.
A substantial amount of work must be done in the root shell when using DirectAdmin. In contrast, CPanel provides nearly all the configuration and functionality through the UI. It makes it easier to use and a better fit for users of all skill levels, especially beginners. DirectAdmin can be a budget-friendly alternative, but if you don’t have much experience, you’d be better off switching to cPanel. OpenLiteSpeed is supported only by DirectAdmin. cPanel and DirectAdmin are both compatible with LiteSpeed Web Server Enterprise.

LiteSpeed Enterprise vs. OpenLiteSpeed

If you can afford it, you should always use LiteSpeed Enterprise instead of OpenLiteSpeed. The Enterprise version of LiteSpeed Cache Engine offers much better performance at both the server and user levels. It is the only option for shared web hosting. The performance of LiteSpeed Enterprise has improved significantly since version 5.4 (current version is 6.0). It’s better suited for production websites thanks to features like optimized commercial mod_security engine, WordPress Brute Force Attacks Protection, ESI integration, and higher stability.
WooCommerce owners should familiarise themselves with ESI and LiteSpeed integration to understand how they can speed up their eCommerce site. Even heavily loaded WooCommerce pages can achieve significantly higher Core Web Vitals thanks to the new Guest Mode introduced with the latest version of LiteSpeed Cache. However, according to LiteSpeed technical support, both ESI and the new Guest mode will work just fine for your website under the OpenLiteSpeed server at the QUIC.cloud CDN node.
OpenLiteSpeed is not suitable for shared hosting. It still lacks some features such as Apache directive support and full htaccess support. OLS does not update the htaccess file if the htaccess file is changed. You can do much more than redirects with .htaccess, but with OLS you can only do rewriterule and rewritercond. It depends on how complex your “complex application” is, but as long as it doesn’t heavily rely on Apache directives or environmental setups, it should work fine with OLS.
Please note that ESI will work on QUIC.cloud CDN with OpenLitespeed webserver. In the end, the page will be served from a CDN node cache instead of OpenLiteSpeed, and ESI will work there. When it does not require ESI, Guest mode operates on OLS alone. Otherwise, it will work with QUIC.cloud CDN. So, ESI with Guest mode are implemented on the front-end of QUIC.cloud node if you are using OpenLiteSpeed webserver.
There are some users who do not appreciate the stability, security, and performance improvements provided by CloudLinux+cPanel+LiteSpeed Enterprise. In many communities, such as LowEndTalk, there are people who dislike paying for software. Some even refer to paying for the above software bundle as “mafia choice”. Be sure to do your homework before ordering managed VPS plans and don’t be surprised to find out that your hosting provider recommends CloudLinux+cPanel+LiteSpeed. This has nothing to do with upselling. It shows that many hosting providers do recognise the benefit of offering the latest standard software for their users. You have the choice to follow their diligent advice or not.
As an ordinary (dumb) customer, I can say that WordPress generally runs faster with providers who offer CloudLinux + LiteSpeed. It has also been my experience that, as far as control panels go, cPanel hosting has a lot fewer “hiccups” compared to other panels. With all that considered, cPanel, CloudLinux and LiteSpeed have a very strong market position allowing shared hosting to still be relatively cheap, with quite good performance. When comparing offers in terms of “bang for the buck” – that combo it’s still unbeaten. I’ve been looking into the budget, and especially free open source alternatives and couldn’t find anything that works nearly as well in practice.
If you want to host a dozen or more websites, cPanel + LiteSpeed + CloudLinux + Softaculous is the most reliable combination. Together, the software in this combo provides performance, stability, security, and ease of use. CloudLinux does not only offer isolation, but also hardens PHP, provides better PHP extension management, and complements both LiteSpeed and cPanel in ensuring hosting security and reliability. 

Setting realistic expectations

Choose your plan carefully and do not sign up for an annual subscription unless you are 100% sure. With managed VPS, you have fewer cancelation rights. A managed VPS is a business-to-business deal that requires upfront costs to obtain the necessary licenses and to install and configure your VPS. If you get root access, the money-back guarantee becomes void. If you request and receive root access, you can do anything on the server (even unknowingly) that will misconfigure it. This is why managed VPS providers usually include this clause. The money-back guarantee can only be enforced if hosting provider does not able to fix the legitimate issues you identified during the initial trial period. Depending on the hosting provider, the period is between 30 and 45 days.
A managed VPS provider is not there to solve your web development problems. To begin with, they are only responsible for installation and initial software tuning to keep your hosting secure and stable. Do not expect them to provide you with more than a couple of hours of technical support per month. Expect to pay extra if you need much more support. If you are not technically savvy, consider a semi-dedicated or quasi-dedicated plan. Managed VPS services are not designed to provide advice and assistance to technically incompetent users.
For those on a tight budget, Black Friday is the time to choose your service provider. Your discount for the first year will likely be 30% higher. If you switch to a different provider every year, you can also upgrade your server hardware. However, we’d bet that if you are not making enough money to pay for premium hosting after a few years, you should abandon such a business anyway.

Managed VPS by MechanicWeb

With MechanicWeb you can grow your website along with allocated resources with a range of VPS plans.  They have plans with 2 CPU/ 4GB RAM, 4 CPU/ 6 GB RAM, 4 CPU/ 8 GB RAM, and 6 CPU/ 12 GB RAM.
Any CPU allocation on a VPS plan is only for serving peak loads. Continuous CPU usage should be much lower. Your fair share for continuous CPU load on HF-48 plan with 4 CPUs and 8 GB RAM is about 35% (1.5 CPU). However, MechanicWeb will tolerate more if many plans on your server are using much less than their fair share. Most LiteSpeed web hosting plans with full server-level caching are idle most of the time. The usage of CPU is close to zero. This means you can always count on four CPUs to handle your peak load. A VPS plan with continuous CPU load can consume up to 50% of its quota without the hosting provider expressing any particular concern. MechanicWeb offers broad geographic coverage with servers in Dallas and Germany.
Do not be fooled by questionable companies like NameHero, who offer  8 CPUs with an 8 GB RAM VPS plan. With NameHero, you get the same 1.5 CPUs as MechanicWeb’s H-48 plan as a fair share for continuous use. That’s less than 20% of your allocated 8 CPUs. At peak load, eight CPUs can be used for a short period of time. A large number of CPUs is only offered for marketing purposes. Typical hosting providers offer two times fewer CPU cores than the amount of RAM in GB to reflect the reality of the hardware used in most shared CPU VPS plans. NameHero and LiquidWeb are examples of questionable marketing that trumps technical realities. To confirm our claim, take a look at the offerings of Linode, Vultr, DigitalOcean or Hetzner.
MechanicWeb’s VPS service is based on KVM (Kernel Based Virtual Machines), a true virtualization technology. KVM VPS is a virtual machine, similar to a small dedicated server. Any software can be installed on it as with any dedicated server. VPS accounts require their own set of software; therefore, license fees must be paid. KVM VPS accounts offer dedicated disk space and RAM by default, threfore they offer better isolation than CageFS and are less likely to be affected by bad neighbours. Similar KVM VPS plans can be found on Cloudways from Linode, DO and Vultr. However, their hardware is about twice as slow. Most users who switch from Cloudways to MechanicWeb VPS are blown away with the performance gains offered by the modern hardware and software bundled by MechanicWeb.
OpenVZ, another virtualisation technology for VPS plans, shares RAM and storage among multiple accounts. OpenVZ offers very similar isolation between VPS accounts to CageFS for shared hosting accounts. OpenVZ provides easy possibility of overselling resources on VPS accounts. From the point of view of resource allocation, there is not much difference between VPS hosting using OpenVZ and ordinary shared hosting. A KVM VPS hosting provider makes more sense if you are thinking about switching to a VPS account.
Dedicated CPU VPS plans are much more expensive per CPU, but are still available if you need them. These VPS plans are the closest thing to a small dedicated server, created as a fraction of a larger physical server. These plans are appropriate only if you prefer to have a CPU resource that is several times smaller but is exclusively yours. Another, more appropriate use case is the requirement for unusually large RAM resources to keep a large object cache for a website which demands heavy dynamic changes to its content.  If you have dedicated CPU resources, your fair share is still about 60%. It might be better to reduce it to 50%  to avoid hitting 100% utilisation during traffic spikes.

Managed VPS by HostXNow

The VPS plans offered by HostXNow are structured similarly to those offered by MechanicWeb. HostXNow’s Ryzen 9500x servers are located at OVH data centers in London and Washington, D.C. The plans are priced similarly to those offered by MechanicWeb after accounting for the fact that there are no additional license fees for JetBackup and KernelCare. The major difference between HostXnow and MechanicWeb is that HostXnow provides proactive monitoring, which is usually only available to corporate customers. HostXNow monitors all VPSs with UptimeRobot/HetrixTools. Before the client notices anything wrong, HostXNow will already start checking the issue with the VPS.
HostXNow’s VPS plans complement MechanicWeb’s because their servers are located in different countries. MechanicWeb’s locations are in Dallas and Germany. HostXNow has locations in London and Washington, DC. To improve delivery of dynamic pages, you should choose a location that is closer to your visitors. However, the difference between Dallas and Washington, as well as between London and Germany, is quite small. Dallas offers a small advantage in serving West Coast and Asian traffic. But Washington offers a slight advantage in serving European clients.

An emerging option

CyberPanel, an open-source project created and funded by LiteSpeed, is emerging as an option for running VPSs at an affordable price. Usman Nasir has been working at LiteSpeed since 2017 as a lead developer on the CyberPanel project. Having access to the source code of LiteSpeed enables Usman to develop a more efficient control panel devoted to hosting OpenLiteSpeed and LiteSpeed Enterprise Web servers.
Rack911 Lab reviewed CyberPanel two years ago and found a long list of vulnerabilities. CyberPanel quickly addressed the security issues. A security engineer was brought on board to take care of this matter. Have all the vulnerabilities found by Rack911 been fixed? Yes, according to CyberPanel, along with others discovered by the new security engineer. Major security updates were released in July 2019 and February 2020. Rack911 Lab had conducted a new external audit in the summer of 2021, and CyberPanel had fixed most concerns in the latest version released in October 2021. There are currently only a couple of thousand servers using CyberPanel, but the product is steadily becoming more and more production-ready.
CyberPanel is an open-source project funded by LiteSpeed Technologies. The software itself is not proprietary. The source code is available online. CyberPanel + OpenLiteSpeed is one of the best combinations. CyberPanel already supports CloudLinux and AlmaLinux. However, please note that OpenLiteSpeed is not really suitable for complex applications or shared hosting. Instead, you should use LiteSpeed Webserver Enterprise.
CloudPages, unlike CyberPanel, is not affiliated with LiteSpeed Technologies. It does offer integration with OpenLiteSpeed and LiteSpeed Enterprise as a web server, but it is not funded by LiteSpeed Technologies. I own CloudPages as an independent company.
Nevertheless, I continue to actively work on improving CyberPanel, and we receive funding and support from LiteSpeed Technologies.
DirectAdmin is the only other traditional control panel that supports OpenLiteSpeed, and LiteSpeed would like to offer an alternative. The fact that you have to use the root shell is exactly why many users do not want to use DirectAdmin – yet another layer of complexity to deal with. CyberPanel might be more user-friendly and better suited to the needs of beginners.  The community is very interested in continuing to help improve the system – not only with documentation and tutorials, but also with coding. CyberPanel remains the focus of LiteSpeed, which has further plans to improve it and develop documentation and tutorials.
CyberPanel is a new ambitious project to make a native control panel for LiteSpeed web server. I don’t know how they did it but the project was so perfect. Things look nice and work well (really great user interface catering perfectly to current trends). I’ve had very little issues setting things up and figuring out how it worked, even though I never used it before. It’s clean, it’s simple. It’s lightweight, thanks to it being created just recently. And best of all, it works with my favorite web server (LiteSpeed!). Oh and that’s not all…CyberPanel with OpenLiteSpeed is TOTALLY FREE! Yes, free! Free even for unlimited accounts and websites!
Given the rapid improvements in security, we expect more managed VPS hosting providers to offer CyberPanel alongside DirectAdmin as a more user-friendly option. The combination of CyberPanel, OpenLiteSpeed, Bubblewrap, CSF/ImunifyAV+, KernelCare, and AlmaLinux provides a low-cost, stable VPS for many customers who are not able to afford the additional licensing costs of about $40 per month for a far more professional and stable software set like cPanel, CloudLinux, and LiteSpeed Enterprise.
In its default form, DirectAdmin is too complicated and its UI is not user-friendly, especially if you want to use it like cPanel. Nevertheless, everything is installed with a single command – including the control panel, CSF firewall, and web server. Also, many things can be installed from the control panel without having to use a terminal. DirectAdmin has undergone some substantial developments in the past two releases. The panel will become more popular if Martynas Bendorius, the developer, starts thinking more about the convenience of the user. There are still difficulties finding good DirectAdmin-based providers despite cPanel’s price rise.
The biggest problem with DirectAdmin is that many (most?) hosting providers are still learning how to use it. Generally, they migrate to DirectAdmin due to the necessity to avoid cPanel’s extortionate prices, but without having enough experience with the new panel. Different providers have caused me various inconveniences, but I generally wonder what problems I’ll face, not whether they’ll occur. Although at this moment, cPanel remains better – I would add that DirectAdmin may be worth considering from a knowledgeable provider.
Some vendors, such as MechanicWeb, offer a heavily customized DirectAdmin panel that looks very similar to the cPanel. Unfortunately, it’s usually not possible to see a showcast of a customized DirectAdmin implementation published as a YouTube video. Without knowing that your provider has developed a simpler interface, people assume it’s the default DirectAdmin, which is complicated for beginners to use.
My personal advice. If you’ve got an important production site, you should only be using the most matured panels. These will be most stable, most secure, and least likely give you issues. And if you’ve got many customers or many servers, you should use only the most popular panels. They will be easier to use for your customers (with tons of guides available for them to figure things out themselves) and also most easily integrated with other software. It may be fun, or financially-tempting to try a less common solution but you end up paying for it when little bugs add up over time.
Hosting providers have been reluctant to offer CyberPanel alongside DirectAdmin to customers interested in OpenLitespeed. Introducing less common solutions to customers is not without its drawbacks. Those who invest effort in simplifying GUI in their own DirectAdmin implementation are especially hesitant. CyberPanel has a better chance of being attractive to hosting providers who have only offered cPanel in the past and are now willing to offer an additional, cheaper option for OpenLiteSpeed users. The success of CyberPanel will depend on overcoming this initial resistance from the web hosting community.

Quasi-dedicated Hosting

MechanicWeb offers quasi-dedicated hosting with fully dedicated RAM and disk space on Zen 3 Ryzen 9 5950x servers for customers who need a lot of resources. Plans with 8 CPUs / 32 GB RAM and 16 CPUs / 64 GB RAM offer dedicated CPUs. Users of dedicated CPU hosting plans are expected to consume more but keep the server CPU load below 65%. You won’t be able to handle spikes in traffic if you don’t do that. Lower tear plans with 8 CPUs/ 16 GB RAM and 8 CPUs/ 24 GB RAM provide shared CPU resources. On the 16 GB RAM plan, your fair share of continuous CPU utilisation is 35%, and on the 24 GB RAM plan, it is about 50%. You may be able to run a slightly higher level of continuous CPU load as most of your neighbours will be idle a lot.
Due to budget constraints, many businesses use entry-level dedicated servers. MechanicWeb’s Ryzen Zen 3 servers are a good solution for these customers. The performance of the Ryzen Zen 3 CPU is typically three to five times that of many entry-level dedicated servers. When such customers choose even entry-level Quasi-Dedicated Hosting, their websites will benefit from significantly more resources.
Quasi-Dedicated Hosting, however, is primarily designed for corporate clients. It is an enterprise-level managed VPS with complete sysadmin control and responsibilities retained by MechanicWeb. The target customers are willing to pay more for a seamless service that is essential to their success. For agencies looking to host their clients’ websites, this priority is automatically lowered. They might prefer to continue using managed VPS or dedicated servers.
In a similar way to VPS plans, Quasi-Dedicated servers are created through KVM isolation. The default software includes cPanel Solo (1 account), LiteSpeed Site Owner Plus, Softaculous, KernelCare, malware scanner, CSF WAF, ModSecurity, Redis/Memcached, SSL certificates, and free daily offsite backups. CloudLinux Shared, ImunifyAV+ or Imunify360, and incremental hourly backups are included as highly recommended paid options. Migration services are included for free with all plans, but only when moving from cPanel and DirectAdmin servers.
The plan’s upgrade to dedicated resources comes at a cost. A quasi-dedicated Spark plan with eight CPUs and 32 GB RAM costs four times as much as a semi-dedicated Elite plan with eight CPUs and 12 GB RAM. The Flux plan with eight shared CPUs and dedicated 16 GB RAM costs $169 per month.
The Flux plan with dedicated 16 GB RAM will cost about 20% more than MechanicWeb’s managed VPS plan HF-612. Yet, the quasi-dedicated Flux plan offers 30% more hardware resources and already includes the cost of most software licenses you will need for your server. MechanicWeb’s sysadmin team will also devote more attention to the Flux plan to provide a more secure, streamlined service. We recommend considering the quasi-dedicated plans with 8 CPUs / 16 GB RAM, and 8 CPUs / 24 GB RAM as the first diligent step before moving to the dedicated server. The higher-tier plans are expensive and some clients might find it more cost-efficient to switch to the managed dedicated servers.
With Quasi-Dedicated plans, you can easily create and start to grow social network websites similar to Facebook using the BuddyBoss WordPress platform, which also integrates Zoom meetings and webinars with a learning management system (LMS) software. MechanicWeb’s Quasi-Dedicated Hosting plans use the fastest Ryzen Zen 3 servers, offering computational power resources unmatched by any other VPS provider on the market. It also has some limitations in that it is not technically a VPS. MechanicWeb will install additional software after they approve your request.
The quasi-dedicated hosting offered by MechanicWeb is not unique. Stablepoint’s managed dedicated business web hosting plans offer a very similar service at a similar price. For its services, Stablepoint uses dedicated CPU VPS from Linode and DigitalOcean. As with MechanicWeb’s quasi-dedicated plans, it also offers fully managed cPanel plans with LiteSpeed Enterprise, Redis, malware scanner and WAF. Since root access is withheld from customers, it is not a managed VPS account. Technical support will install any custom software with prior approval from technical managers.  Stablepoint offers hardware that is almost 40% slower than MechanicWeb, but has access to more global data centres. You should consider MechanicWeb if you need services in the UK, Europe, or the US. Stablepoint’s plans are best suited for destinations such as Canada, Northeastern and Midwestern United States, Latin America, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, India, and Japan.

Dedicated Hosting

You can keep upgrading the hardware to cover for a massive spike in the traffic during the festive season, renting a whole dedicated managed AMD Ryzen Zen 3 5900x server with 12 CPU (=24 logical CPUs) cores and 64 GB RAM from Mechanic Web in London and LA. It will provide about three times more processing peak power than HF-68 plan but now all CPU recources are fully dedicated to your account. As a drawback, it will command an overall monthly bill approaching $400, including software licenses. For enormous traffic volume, it might be best to unload static HTML files to QUIC.cloud CDN while serving all other static content through the Geo-Replicated Perma-Cache of the BunnyCDN as described in our separate paper.
Zen 3 AMD Ryzen 9 5950x with 16 CPU cores (=32 logical CPUs) and 128 GB RAM is the most affordable super powerful server on the market right now. AMD Ryzen 9 5950x are currently available from MechanicWeb in Dallas and Germany but will be more widely available in the coming months. AMD has taken a big step forward with Ryzen Zen 3. The 45% performance improvement over AMD Ryzen 2 makes them an ideal workhorse for even the most demanding projects. The GridPane team recommends them for the most advanced users.
The main difference between a VPS plan and a dedicated server is that you need to aim for a much lower average CPU load. Dedicated servers should never be 100% utilised to avoid heavy multithreading that slows them down. Your server’s peak load should not ever exceed 60% of CPU resources. For this, you may need to make sure that the average load does not exceed 30%. Reputable shared hosting and VPS providers run their servers underutilised, and now it’s your turn to do the same.
Let’s use an example to explain. The operating system creates 32 logical cores when you have 16 CPU physical cores. Modern CPU cores are designed to multiplex (Hyper-Thread) resources between logical cores. According to Intel, this can boost the performance of the physical core by about 20 to 30%. Therefore, 16 CPU cores can perform the work of up to 20 CPUs. It is simple – sometimes, the CPU core is just waiting for data from the disk or RAM. Instead of idling, it can serve another process. Hyper-threading implements different pipelines for different threads using hardware.
The physical CPU cores start hyper-threading after 50% logical CPU utilisation (the number of utilised logical cores > number of physical cores). CPU utilisation of up to 60% might be OK – your efficiency might not degrade, but CPUs core idle time is reduced. Above 65% CPU utilisation, you surely enter the area of declining efficiency. Instead of idle, the physical CPU is frantically trying to serve everything it can – but it cannot handle two threads simultaneously! It can only multiplex between them.
Hyper-threading
A good hosting provider aims to keep logical CPU utilisation (reported by the operating system) well below 50% for this reason. It is already approaching 100% of the physical CPU cores capacity at 50% logical CPU utilisation! It is essential to recognise that you have 32 logical cores for 16 physical cores, so 65% logical CPU utilisation is already 21 logical CPUs multiplexed on 16 physical cores. Five physical CPU cores will serve two logical cores each. Therefore, the performance of each of ten logical CPU cores is reduced to 130%/2=65%. Only one process will run on the remaining 11 CPU cores, so logical cores served their will remain at 100% efficiency. It is equally likely that your newly started process will remain 100% fast or slow down by 35%. The average performance of your site drops by 17%, with some visitors suffering more than others.  When you measure something like PHP benchmarks on your server, you will notice sporadic performance drops of up to 35%. It is often referred to as a noisy environment, but it is simply the possibility of sharing a physical core with another logical core.
You do not have to worry about that when you have a VPS or quasi-dedicated server. Despite the fact that you have the right to use 100% CPU, please be aware that no hosting provider will be pleased with continuous 60% CPU utilisation even on a dedicated CPU plan. Occasionally, you can reach 100% without drop in the performance. There may be enough resources on your server to handle your spike if neighboring accounts are underused. The best hosting providers will also leave some logical CPU cores unassigned to guarantee enough resources for spike loads.
You need to adjust your expectations for your dedicated server – the top bar is now 65%, not 100%. Thus, you have to aim to continuous utilisation below 33% to be able to process the spikes in the load.
On the dedicated server, please start with LiteSpeed Web Server Enterprise Site Owner Plus or Web Host Essential, depending on your needs. There is no direct correlation between the number of LiteSpeed Workers and the number of CPU cores, but rather between the number of PHP child processes the Workers create. The parent process spawns a child process, which delivers the web page. Each child process increases the CPU usage of the parent process. Once the CPU consumption of the parent process reaches 80%, it is time to get another worker license.
There are cases when one worker license is sufficient for a 32 CPU core server; there are cases when an 8 CPU core server might require two workers under the Web Host Professional plan – all depends on how much its parent process consumes. LiteSpeed Web Host Elite comes with an unlimited number of workers for the most demanding users.
If you need to scale your website, but even a dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 5950x server doesn’t seem like enough for the task at hand, then it’s time to start looking into further options. Your sysadmin will likely prefer to use a high-performing HTTP load balancer and application delivery controller, such as LiteSpeed Web ADC. This software allows you to scale up your WordPress site by deploying a cluster of High Availability servers. This solution is fully integrated with the LiteSpeed Web Server and provides synchronised web cache content for all cluster nodes.
Even though LiteSpeed Web ADC is software-based, it can compete with hardware load balancers. It should be possible to add as many servers as needed. Scaling up your application using this method is the most cost-effective option. However, it is not the fastest setup. Scaling up first using AMD EPYC Zen 3 servers is a more expensive alternative to LiteSpeed Web ADC, but it will perform faster.
Using AMD EPYC you have several steps to increase your server’s computational power by more than six times. All servers listed below are based on the most recent 3d generation of AMD EPYC processors introduced in Q1 2021. However, please be aware that AMD Ryzen Zen 3 is about 30% faster and is significantly cheaper to rent.  The family includes AMD EPYC 7443 (3.6 GHz turbo all cores) with 48 cores, AMD EPYC 7513 (3.2 GHz turbo all cores) with 64 cores, AMD EPYC 7643 (3.4GHz turbo all cores) with 96 cores, and the expensive monster AMD EPYC 7763 (3.2 GHz turbo all cores) server with 128 CPU cores (=256 logical CPUs) and 512 GB of RAM. All websites are different, but we believe that using the CDN services described above will allow you to serve the traffic of more than five million visitors per day or about 150 million per month.
Wes Tatters
Wes Taters, producer at Light Knights Productions
LiteSpeed is the only way we have found to handle high concurrency without server crashes and page misses. In a high performance configuration, 16 CPU cores/ 64 GB RAM provide good headroom. As a rule of thumb, 2 CPU cores should be reserved for LiteSpeed workers, 4 cores for MySQL needs, one CPU core for Redis and the rest for PHP workloads. Similarly, RAM – 2GB for LiteSpeed workers, 4GB for Redis, 2GB for OPcache, 16GB for SQL (more will be stolen) and the rest for as many worker threads as are practical.
Another note on the game – EVERY CPU is not equal. Some are slow as turtles – others are Lamborghinis. But then 64 cores or 128 cores are not possible on some of these Lamborghinis. Right now we are mostly limited to 16 cores (32 logical CPU cores) and 128 GB RAM.
If you need a beast setup, it’s all a balancing act. Be aware that vertical scaling is always better than horizontal. Even if that means moving to another server with a slower CPU. At a certain point – EACH part of the equation becomes a bottleneck. When you reach a point where horizontal scaling becomes the only option, then we add backbone speed to the mix. There’s no point in having a 128-core beast if it can not transfer data from a dedicated SQL Server cluster over a 1 Gbps backbone.
If you don’t have a sysadmin capable to configure LiteSpeed Web ADC but have money to burn, your best option may be cloud service management platforms provided by a third party. You might want to talk to providers like GridPane. They offer node scalings that will allow you to spread your website over multiple servers. With such service, they provide an easy UI driven control panel so that customers don’t have any worries about scaling out or adding more resources.

Unmanaged VPS Hosting

Is it really something you're ready for?

It does not help that many WordPress “experts” recommend slow web hosting services as the best. We have already shown examples of charlatans trying to convince you to use services like Hostinger, GreenGeeks, and even low-key providers like RaidBoxes. Customers of such web hosting companies are fed up with shared hosting accounts with slow hardware. They are desperate for something different. As a result, two new web hosting markets have emerged: one is the high-end shared hosting market, and the other is the simplified cloud control panel services for unamanged VPS that requires no sysadmin skills.
Based on our report, we strongly believe that premium shared hosting won this round due to its superior performance. Companies like MechanicWeb or HostXNow provide you with modern hardware equivalent or better than any unmanaged VPS. Also, premium shared hosting providers offer:
  • Control Panels (cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin) designed for professional hosting companies; they offer more security than most entry-level cloud control panels for umanaged VPS.
  • Server-level malware protection.
  • The LiteSpeed Enterprise Web Server with superior performance.
Most users ignore the warning on the wall that 94% of all hacked websites use WordPress. Website security is not an issue for users until their website is hacked. Their desire to save a monthly fee while maintaining a decent hardware setup is completely understandable. But what does it cost to fix the hacked website? You are committing a far greater sin when you host your clients’ websites on unmanaged VPS hosting accounts. Are you sure you are qualified to take full responsibility for protecting your clients’ websites? After a website is hacked, more than half of companies are out of business within the first year. Are you sure that hosting on an unmanaged VPS is in the best interest of your clients?
Stay away from unmanaged VPSs if you are not technically savvy. It could turn out to be the biggest disaster of your career. You shouldn’t use an unmanaged VPS unless you are knowledgeable about server administration. When it comes to sysadmin tasks, experience is even more important than skills. There are a hundred ways to accomplish a task, but only experience can give you the insight to pick the right one. Use fully managed VPS or premium shared hosting accounts instead of taking unnecessary risks – no one, including your clients, will blame you.
Many users believe that using emerging management panels such as Cloudways, RunCloud, or CloudPages provides management-lite VPS accounts. These are mistakes of judgement. The junior accounts on RunCloud and CloudPages do not even come with WAF protection, and ModSecurity is only available on their highest-tier plans, priced at about $40 per month. Unlike their mature siblings such as cPanel, none of these new management panels developed in Malaysia and Pakistan undergoes an external security audit. In addition, none of them offers server-level integration with industry-standard malware scanners and removal tools. While there is an option to reduce security holes by using paid security WP plugins, many agree that proper malware protection should be handled at the server level.
Do you really need a WordPress security plugin?
My personal opinion? Yes and no. I see tons of people still getting hacked with security plugins installed. WordPress security plugins SUCK! Most of their features suck.
  • They slow down your site.
  • They can’t secure/detect everything.
  • They cost money.
  • They give a false sense of security (BIGGEST OFFENSE).
SaaS platforms such as Cloudways, RunCloud, and CloudPages are installed on their servers with only client software installed on yours. Some sysadmin tasks are automated, but tools lack the human expertise that is essential for managing a VPS. Their codebase is not tested anywhere. Aside from Cloudways, other teams are too small to perform even basic quality checks (QA). Reputable security firms do not recommend any of the above-listed SaaS management panels. As of now, they have mostly been praised by affiliates and not by experts or hosting veterans who have no intention in collecting affiliate fees.
Try out MechanicWeb’s Semi-Dedicated and Quay-Dedicated plans. You might find they meet all your technical needs and are less expensive than most managed VPS hosting plans.
It’s too bad that every response to [insert problem with website here] tends to be “Get a VPS from [unmanaged VPS provider].” It’s about everywhere that discusses hosting. It’s the hype and blissful ignorance. Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I wasn’t aware of all of the problems I solve on a daily basis.
If you are not familiar with administering a server avoid VPS. VPS is not about performance. It is about control at the server configuration level.

Harwdware options

Unmanaged VPS accounts are best used as a test environment during the development process for the complex websites. If your site is not in production, you may be able to restore it from a backup in case it gets hacked. Below are some recommendations that can help you choose your infrastructure.
As we mentioned earlier, most VPS providers offer shared CPU VPS plans. The following rule of thumb is based on the typical configuration of modern servers. A shared CPU account will give you up to twice as much memory in GB as the number of CPUs (e.g. 8 GB RAM and 4 CPUs). It is most likely a dedicated CPU account if you have 4 times more RAM in GB than the number of CPUs (e.g. 8 GB RAM and 2 CPUs).
Make sure you subscribe to dedicated RAM accounts, preferably KVM VPS (Kernel-based Virtual Machine). Dedicated RAM ensure that the user density on the VPS servers is low. The cost of dedicated RAM VPS accounts can be four times as much, but they are worth it in the long run!
When choosing your VPS provider, consider the speed of the hardware. VPS accounts based on Ryzen Zen 3 hardware offer some of the best value for money with impressive performance. You can find cheap hosting providers recommended in the LowEndTalk community. But affordable price does not make their services reliable or stable. Below a certain price point, it is very difficult, almost impossible to monitor and ensure stability. Therefore you should be very careful if you are using such providers for production websites. However, they can be an option for hosting your development servers.
These days, it makes sense to search for Ryzen 9 5950x Zen 3 KVM VPS services. On  LowEndTalk you can find WebHosting24, which offers Ryzen 9 5950x KVM VPS in Los Angeles. They charge $27 per month for an 8 vCPU, 8GB RAM, and 16 TB bandwidth plan. A fair share of CPU is about 120% of a single vCPU on this plan or about 15% of the total CPU allocation. A plan with 12 vCPUs (fair share 1.8 vCPU), 12 GB of RAM, and 24 TB of bandwidth costs $41 per month.
Advin Servers, a brand new VPS provider, has Ryzen Zen 3 servers collocated in data centres in Dallas, Buffalo (NY) and Coventry (UK). They are using ECC RAM, but have no desire to introduce NVMe SSD. The 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM plan is available for $8 per month. The highest tier plan includes 6 vCPUs, 32 GB RAM, and 16 TB bandwidth for $32 per month. Bloom Host offers VPS hosting in multiple locations across the US, including on the East Coast. They use data centres in Ashburn (VA), Dallas, Los Angeles and Germany. The plan with 2 vCPU, 8GB RAM and 4TB bandwidth costs $26 per month. You can get 6 vCPUs, 24 GB RAM, and 12 TB bandwidth for $78 per month. The company offers NVMe hard drives, but not all of its Ryzen 9 5950x servers come with ECC RAM.
FullTime Hosting offers Ryzen 9 5950X VPS from Hetzner data centre in Germany. The price is $29 per month for 4 vCPUs and 12 GB RAM and increases to $75 per month for the dedicated vCPU plan with 8 vCPUs and 32 GB RAM. Zade Servers also offers VPS from the Hetzner data centre in Germany, charging $20 per month for 4 vCPUs, 8 GB RAM. At $80 per month, you can get a plan with 16 vCPU and 32 GB RAM. Server Hunter has more information about the VPS hosting providers offering Ruzen 9 5950x VPS plans from Germany.

Management panels

Ryzen KVM VPS plans are inexpensive, but you should also use an appropriate management panel to simplify maintenance. It is unlikely that users can afford GridPane at $200 per month. RunCloud’s basic plan starts at just $6.67 per month, which is a great value. The Pro plan costs $12.5 per month. Most people like to use Runcloud’s cheapest plans without firewall and malware protection. The ModSecurity WAF is only included in the Business plan priced at $37.5/month. There is a lot of buzz about RunCloud in Facebook groups. There are about 60,000 servers running it, mostly small VPS servers with less than eight domains per server.
Runcloud is extremely affordable, highly functional, and offers excellent support as well as automatic offsite backup every 30 minutes for $1 per month. Don’t skip RunCloud advice to check out various security plugins like NinjaFirewall (WP Edition), Block Bad Queries (BBQ), WP fail2ban, Plugin Security Scanner, Blackhole for Bad Bots, StopBadBots, CloudFit, MalCare, and the premium version of WordFence. Please be aware that WordPress plugins will not protect your website from hackers, that is the server-level task. However, these security plugins can fend off most attacks and hacking attempts. You might afford adding Virusdie’s protection service for $15 per month if you have to secure a single website.
RunCloud is my current favourite cloud control panel. It’s fast, stable, and has a really mature interface. Keep in mind that their service is still aimed more at developers rather than typical website owners. Installation requires a very short (but doable) visit to the command line. And their interface is built more for developers. Lots of dials and things (although very cleanly organized). I think their branding/service is very cute and friendly but not quite simple enough for basic website owners. For the tech-savvy, I think their UI is heaven…chock full of all the features you’d ever want.
Because it is incredibly easy to manage load on free OpenLiteSpeed, it is very popular option on RunCloud for adding server-side caching. OpenLiteSpeed consumes less CPU and RAM than other web servers like Apache or Nginx. However, you should only host a handful of websites. OpenLiteSpeed has some critical bugs and should not be used for demanding applications.
LiteSpeed Web Server Enterprise integrates with major web hosting control panel software such as cPanel, DirectAdmin, and Plesk (while OpenLiteSpeed integrates only with DirectAdmin). CloudPages is the new SaaS managed panel that supports LiteSpeed Enterprise.  It’s a fresh product from the same team that built CyberPanel, which also integrates with LiteSpeed Enterprise.  CloudPages and CyberPanel integrate with LS without charging an additional fee. Early adopters can get a lifetime deal for CloudPages since it is still technically in the beta stage. There is a lot of room for improvement, but so far, it has been smooth sailing.
If you use CloudPages at this early stage, be prepared to be a guinea pig for beta testing. Before seriously considering this option, give them some time to discover and fix the bugs. It is not advisable to use a control panel that a reputable security company has not yet audited. The team that developed CloudPages is small, but they are now combining the best ideas from RunCloud, GridPane, and their own CyberPanel to build something interesting. From their experience developing CyberPanel, they have valuable feedback. However, please be aware that the external security audit of CyberPanel in 2019 and 2021 produced a long list of issues. The list will be as long or even longer for CloudPages, but the product is not yet ready for its first round of security audit. It is not wise to use CloudPages until it has been subjected to several rounds of security audits by Rack911 Lab.
CloudPages’ pricing model is comparable to other managed panels like RunCloud, but it supports both Litespeed Enterprise and OpenLiteSpeed. It also offers Bubblewrap. A lightweight sandbox application integrated into LiteSpeed Web Server, Bubblewrap has a small installation footprint and minimal resource requirements.  It provides limited feature set of  CloudLinux CageFX. If one of your websites is infected, Bubblewrap isolates it, preventing the virus from spreading to other websites on your server.
If you can afford it, you should always use LiteSpeed Enterprise instead of OpenLiteSpeed. The Enterprise version of LiteSpeed Cache Engine offers much better performance at both the server and user levels. It is the only option for shared web hosting. The performance of LiteSpeed Enterprise has improved significantly since version 5.4 (current version is 6.0). It’s better suited for production websites thanks to features like brute-force attack protection, ESI integration, and higher stability. WooCommerce owners should familiarise themselves with ESI and LiteSpeed integration to understand how they can speed up their eCommerce site. Even heavily loaded WooCommerce pages can achieve significantly higher Core Web Vitals thanks to the new Guest Mode introduced with the latest version of LiteSpeed Cache. However, according to LiteSpeed technical support, both ESI and the new guest mode will work just fine for your website under the OpenLiteSpeed server at the QUIC.cloud CDN node.
This is an absolutely great article.

Full with detailed explanation and unbiased comparisons.
The Free Enterprise LiteSpeed plan can be used only for one domain on a server with up to 2 GB of RAM. It can be paired with $10 per month Personal plan on CloudPages to serve 2 GB RAM/ 1 vCPU VPS. For $10 per month, we recommend SiteOwner LiteSpeed Web Server Enterprise. It’s better suited for $16 per month Freelancer plan on CloudPages and is limited to 5 domains and 8 GB RAM. For unlimited domains you have to consider CloudPages’ Agency plan for $40 per month plus WebHost Lite Enterprise for $26 per month. If you go alone with Linode, for 8 GB RAM plan you will have to fork another $40 per month for four shared vCPU or $60 per month for four dedicated vCPUs. You accumulate a bill from $106 to $126 per month and this does not even include emails, backups, and malware protection.
Installing a standalone version of Imunify360 can improve the security of your VPS. Imunify is integrated with cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin, and CyberPanel but it also has a standalone installation option. Imunify supports LiteSpeed in standalone version since version 4.8, which was released in May 2020. You can install it on CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian or CloudLinux without using a control panel. You pay between $12 and $35 per month, depending on the number of users on the server. If you do not want to install Imunify yourself, you might want to hire the sysadmin to do so.  Consider using a combination of CSF and ImunifyAV+ in this case to save money.

Managed vs unmanaged VPS

If you do not need to use root access, you have to seriously ask yourself what are you doing. For half the price, you can get MechanicWeb’s Elite semi-dedicated hosting package with 12 GB RAM and 8 CPUs. The MecahnicWeb Ryzen Zen 3 hardware is 70% faster than the new Zen 2 AMD EPYC 7542 servers on Linode, so its 8 CPUs can handle the load of 14 CPUs on Linode. Thus, you have three times more resources to handle peak loads for half the price of your own server. You also have server-level malware protection, MailChannels outbound spam filtering, CageFS Security Isolation, and daily offsite backups. Plus, everything is maintained and controlled by a professional team of sysadmins with 24/7 tech support. Is it really necessary to go to all this trouble with using CloudPages if you only host WordPress websites?
Here are three options for comparison. Which one has a better value?
  • Your monthly bill is $126, which does not include email, backups, and malware protection. It’s based on CloudPages’ Agency plan, WebHost Lite Enterprise, and a dedicated CPU Linode instance with 4 vCPU and 8 GB RAM. CloudPage is beta testing a brand new panel that an external security firm has never audited.
  • Stablepoint’s Start-Up Business plan offers the same Linode instance with dedicated 4 CPUs and 8 GB RAM for $139 per month. They provide LiteSpeed Enterprise and 30 cPanel accounts to isolate your sites. CageFS isolation works much better than Bubblewrap. Stabelpoint includes email, backups and server-level malware protection. The security and stability are based on cPanel, which is regularly audited by external security firms.
  • MechanicWeb’s quasi-dedicated Flux plan costs $149 per month. With this plan, you get dedicated 16 GB RAM and 8 shared CPUs. MechanicWeb’s AMD Ryzen Zen 3 hardware is about 70% faster than Linode’s AMD EPYC 7542 Zen 2 servers. Its 8 CPUs are equivalent to about 14 vCPUs provided by Linode hardware. Anyone who studied math in school will see the advantage of using 14 shared vCPUs with average utilisation of 30% over dedicated 4 vCPUs with average utilisation of 60%. MechanicWeb offers cPanel with LiteSpeed Enterprise but does not offer multiple cPanel accounts for agencies – MechanicWeb’s advanced reseller plans are more suitable for such use cases. If you need a cPanel Pro with the Flux plan, you’ll have to pay extra for it.
Even if you must have root access, consider all the costs involved and decide whether you can afford a managed VPS plan that costs from $40 to $50 more per month than an unmanaged one. If a managed VPS provider charges less than $40 extra per month, they won’t provide any decent technical support. Do not be surprised to pay another $50 to $60 per month for software licenses. You should not ignore suggestions from your provider – additional software like cPanel, CloudLinux, LiteSpeed Enterprise, Softaculous, and ImunifyAV+ will make your server more reliable and secure. The advantage of managed VPS providers such as HostXNow and MechanicWeb is that they keep the servers underloaded. Therefore, hosting accounts do not compete for CPU cores, but instead, get them on demand. Providers do not offer fully dedicated CPU plans, but they can handle higher sustained CPU loads than some shared VPS plans.
A managed VPS plan gives you more security, usability, and stability. You get it with standard cPanel:
  • With two decades of development, bug fixing, and security hardening, the codebase is robust.
  • cPanel’s own quality testing and security team regularly reviews the software for bugs and security issues. A smaller control panel does not even have a QA team, let alone a security researcher.
  • cPanel’s software is regularly audited by third parties for bugs and security issues – the audits are paid for by cPanel.
  • cPanel offers the largest bug bounty program in the web hosting software industry – you find bugs and get paid for that.
  • cPanel is used by the majority of web hosting companies. The more servers that use cPanel, the faster bugs and shortcomings are discovered and fixed.
  • Native integration with all major third-party software increases stability and performance. Other control panels are not even close.
  •  Of course, cPanel supports LiteSpeed Web Server Enterprise as well.

Next steps

Our main research article provides a quick overview of the best hosting options currently on the market. The following posts continue the research article.
  • Part 1. We give a detailed overview of the standard software options offered by all reasonable LightSpeed web hosting providers. Before you choose your hosting, you should read this chapter!
  • Part 2. You should read the detailed chapter explaining the cheating and fraudulent schemes of Cloudways and its affiliate community. We strongly recommend you to study it if you are still angry at us after reading our direct insults against Cloudways and their iconic services.
  • Part 3. In the third chapter, we explain the technical details of our benchmarking study. Read it if you want to quickly test the actual quality of hardware resources provided by your hosting provider. You’ll also get an objective look at their sysadmin team – can they fine-tune software settings to optimize database performance?
  • Part 4 (this post). The final chapter covers advanced hosting options for extremely busy websites. You should study this chapter if you have more than 100,000 visitors per month and are determined to switch to VPS hosting.
There are many hosting providers – each with its own advantages and disadvantages – but it can be hard to decide which is the best one. We have researched and sorted out the most appropriate hosting providers who offer all of the services discussed in this article’s first section. Our separate report has covered in detail some of the providers you will have to choose from. The obvious winner is MechanicWeb who provide their plans at the most affordable price using fastest and most optimised servers.
When websites attract heavy traffic, they overwhelm the provider’s hosting capacity. Adding a CDN service is an excellent way to get your website in front of more people and grow your audience. If you have a website with high traffic, then we recommend giving BunnyCDN a try. It will store a permanent cache of your website’s static files like CSS, JS, and images in its Geo-Replicated Perma-Cache servers. These servers will provide your files to the cache of 30 servers located around the world, shielding your origin from traffic. Your origin server will be left with the task of delivering HTML files to visitors, reducing the bandwidth load at your origin by a minimum of thirty times. BunnyCDN services cost you about $1 per month. It is a much better option than upgrading the level of your subscription with your original hosting provider.
If your website is hosted on a LiteSpeed Web server, you can reduce your workload by serving HTML pages through QUIC.cloud CDN. This CDN gives 10 GB of free traffic per month, leaving your origin server to only serve dynamic HTML files for your eCommerce clients. Please read our blog post “How to Choose Your Best CDN Provider” for more in-depth technical information about the services discussed above.
Web design agencies are essential for the success of any website. Selecting a proper hosting and content distribution network provider can help improve the page loading time but to succeed, you need a professional web design. Website design tools are increasingly commoditised, leading to an increase in the number of web designers with limited technical knowledge. Many of these designers cannot guarantee high-speed page loads for mobile devices or desktops. Our article “How to Choose a Web Design Agency” includes clear criteria for evaluating web design companies.
We’re one of the best web design agencies in Cambridge, and we specialise in speed optimisation. Our company has been in the graphic design industry for years, with over seventeen years of experience. We work hand in hand with our customers to understand their needs and create a strategy exclusively for them. We provide a comprehensive design process combined with an affordable web design package to all our clients. Please visit our website’s page about our web designs services for more information on what we offer.
Through our comprehensive solutions, we can help your business from logo designs to designing eCommerce stores. We provide a range of services, including technical SEO and relocation assistance to better web hosting. With our graphic design expertise, we are prepared to meet any other creative need that may arise.
Please contact us at svetlana.zh@webwhim.co.uk if you need any assistance, and we will be happy to help you.
Visit our WordPress research portal for more information. We spoke with plugin developers and hosting providers to compile six articles about how to become a better WordPress user. A knowledgeable web design agency will make all the difference in the speed of your site. You also need a set of plugins, tools, and a good hosting provider and a fast CDN to keep up with incoming traffic. If you don’t do these basics, your website will not pass the Page Experience signals introduced by Google.