Here’s the 15th Monthly Hosting Performance Contest Roundup for April 2017!
I’ve been testing 15 hosts in a non-stop manner the whole month and I’ll show you you the results below. In general, this contest’s result can be featured as “The cheap hosting wins the contest”.
By the way, you can find the latest roundups here and the performance tables and charts here.
All monitored hosts are presented in the pricing categories according to the most affordable plan they have. Also, I bought the most affordable plans available at each hosting company to test hosting performance.
Let’s see how the hosts hosts performed in April 2017!
Common Information
As you may already know, I’ve been monitoring the performance of some of the best hosting providers I know as well as some other well-known hosts.
In short, since 2013 I’ve been picking out great hosts judging by real users reviews, professional hosting community opinion, long honorable business experience and other factors which make a great hosting.
And I buy anonymously hosting accounts with different hosts in order to closely monitor their performance (basically, uptime checked every minute and full page load time checked every 15 minutes) using a professional monitoring service monitis.com. I buy the most basic and the cheapest plan of each hosting. You can read about my monitoring methodology here.
And I’m happy to share these statistics with you so that you could see how these hosts perform and who is the best from the best!
You can find some real-time performance charts on my recommended hosts page for the hosting which I’ve been recommending and monitoring.
Also, you can see real-time monitoring charts for all hosts that I am monitoring on this page. In addition, the page contains monthly historical data on hosting performance (speed, uptime, satisfactory apdex) – very interesting and useful.
Besides, you may read more information about this Hosting Performance Contest on this page. I will be adding monthly and yearly Contest results on the page too.
And other monthly Hosting Performance Contest roundups are available from here.
Please note that although all hosts mentioned in this post are well-established and considered to be very good, I highly recommend not all of them. My recommended hosts are here.
April 2017 Hosting Performance Contest – Results
Here are the fifteen hosts that you can compare this month. I’ve broken down them in three groups: very affordable (below $4/mo), middle class (upto $8/mo) and more expensive ($8+/mo).
- SiteGround (I recommend it, here’s my review)
- StableHost (I recommend it, here’s my review)
- GeekStorage (I recommend it, here’s my review)
- A2Hosting (I recommend it, here’s my review)
- VeeroTech (I recommend it, here’s my review)
- MDDHosting (I recommend it, here’s my review)
- HawkHost (I recommend it, here’s my review)
- Squidix (I recommend it, here’s my review)
- InMotionHosting
- HostWinds
- LunarPages
- MochaHost
- Eleven2
- GreenGeeks
- GlowHost
You’ll see a breakdown of hosting performance by prices in the sections below.
Let’s start from an overview of the hosting performance in the order of how the hosts performed in general regardless of how affordable or expensive the hosts are.
The winner of this month’s contest is MDDHosting!. By the way, it’s one of the most affordable hosts!
In the Top-3 also go SiteGround and GeekStorage.
What’s interesting about the leaders is that the winners are from all the different pricing categories. Also, more affordable hosts outperformed some of the more expensive ones!
Average full page load time of MDDHosting (the winner) was 0.94 seconds (it’s super fast). Its Uptime was 99.95% (very solid). And its Satisfactory Apdex was also very high 99.92% (i.e. 99.92% of time the full page load time was less than 2.5 seconds). Impressive! All these parameters are much above the benchmarks specified for the greatest performance. And since this hosting was the fastest host among the hosts which exceeded all the benchmarks determined for the greatest hosts MDDHosting wins the gold medal.
It’s worth emphasizing that MDDHosting is very affordable, especially compared to other hosts tested. And this month it could outperform other hosts with quite a speed advantage. Congratulations!
The silver medal goes to SiteGround.
SiteGround performed in April 2017 as fast as 1.36 seconds which is superb. Its uptime was almost perfect 99.99%. And the Satisfactory Apdex was also very high – 99.88% (99.88% of all time the speed was faster than 2.5 seconds, and of course it’s above the highest standards set for great hosting).
The bronze medalist is GeekStorage.
In April 2017 GeekStorage was on average as fast as 1.39 seconds that is 0.03 seconds slower than the leader. GeekStorage‘s uptime was also great – 99.98%. And its Satisfactory Apdex was perfect – 100% (i.e. 100% of all time full page load time of my website hosted with this host was less than 2.5 seconds). Brilliant results!
HostWinds took the 4th place with 1.5 seconds speed, perfect uptime (100%) and awesome Satisfactory Apdex (99.85%). The values are much above the highest standards set for the best hosts.
Other hosts could not meet at least one of the benchmarks set for the best hosting, though the results of some hosts were very close to the benchmarks and pretty good in general.
StableHost goes to the 5th place. Its performance values were generally great. Its speed (1.39 seconds) was awesome. It had very good uptime (99.97%). And its Satisfactory Apdex (98.27%) was a bit below the value set for the great hosts in this contest.
LunarPages took the 6th place. Its 1.57 seconds full page load time was great. And its uptime (99.95%) was also very strong. Satisfactory Apdex (98.95%) could not meet the benchmark (99%) a bit.
A2Hosting goes to the 7th place. Its 1.71 seconds full page load time was pretty good. Its uptime (99.96%) was very good above the benchmark (99.9%). But the host failed its Satisfactory Apdex (98.31%) which was a bit below the benchmark (99%). That’s why it goes below some other hosts.
InMotionHosting took the 8th place. Its average speed was generally good (1.74 seconds full page load time), but its Satisfactory Apdex (98.42%) was a bit below the highest standards (99%). It did not pass the benchmark. Its uptime (99.94%) was great though.
VeeroTech took the 9th place with also 1.74 seconds speed like the above host. But it had nearly great uptime (99.89%) this month. It did not pass the benchmark. And it had not the greatest Satisfactory Apdex (97.71%), which is below the benchmark (99%) a little.
GreenGeeks goes to the 10th place. Its average speed (2.06 secs) was not bad. And its uptime (99.94%) was great and above the benchmark (99.9%). But its Satisfactory Apdex (88.32%) did not meet the highest standards (99%).
Eleven2 got the 11th place. Its average speed (2.07 secs) was not bad. But it failed both benchmarks. Its uptime was 99.27%, which is below the benchmark (99.9%). And its Satisfactory Apdex (91.39%) could not get to the highest standards (99%) as well.
MochaHost takes the 12th place.. Its speed was generally not bad (2.08 seconds). But its uptime (99.63%) was below the benchmark (99.9%). And its Satisfactory Apdex (89.56%) also did not pass the benchmark test (99%).
HawkHost took just the 13th place. Its average speed (2.18 seconds) was slower than the most of the hosts above. And its Satisfactory Apdex (82.03%) did not meet the highest standards (99%). However, its uptime was very good (99.96%) and much above the highest standards (99.9%).
Squidix goes to the 14th place with its average speed 2.26 seconds. Its uptime (99.94%) was great and very well above the benchmark (99.9%). But its Satisfactory Apdex was 75.86% (75.86% of time its Full page load time was below 2.5 seconds). It’s below the benchmark level (99%).
And finally, GlowHost is again on the last, 15th place. This host could not get higher because of its low speed. This month it showed very good uptime (99.93%), which is above the benchmark (99.9%). Its speed was not really good (3.19 seconds). And as expected, its Satisfactory Apdex (0.03%) was the lowest among other monitored hosts; and it was far from reaching the benchmark level (99%). In other words, practically all the time the loading time of my test website was slower than 2.5 seconds.
Generally, the competition this month revealed a little performance decreasing for some of the leading hosts (except the winner). An interesting part is that some of the more expensive hosts got even lower in the standings, because more affordable hosts performed better.
By the way, keep in mind, that for this Contest I pick out the hosts which are considered to be good, great and superb. These hosts are established businesses for many years and some of them are widely recommended in the Internet. So, the idea of this Contest is to determine the best performing hosts from a technical point of view, giving you objective information for making your own decision regarding hosts.
Let’s see now the results in tables and charts for more convenience, more information and more insight.
Here’s a table view to compare the Hosting Performance Contest results in April 2017:
Table column notes:
Place: The place a hosting has won in this Contest (the less the better).
Load Time: Average Full Page Load Time (the less the better). Checked every 15 minutes.
Uptime: Uptime (the more the better). Checked every minute.
Superb Uptime: If Uptime Benchmark (99.9%) passed (YES is very good).
Apdex-S: Satisfactory Apdex, i.e. how often a test website on a tested hosting was loading faster than 2.5 sec (the more the Apdex-S the better). Checked every 15 minutes.
Superb Apdex-S: If Satisfactory Apdex benchmark (99%) passed (YES is very good).
Color areas: The greener, the better. Yellow is below the highest standards. Orange is worse. Red is the worst.
Here’s a table with hosting prices:
1 year: Regular prices (after the first invoice) for 1-year plan.
2 years: Regular prices (after the first invoice) for 2-year plan.
3 years: Regular prices (after the first invoice) for 3-year plan.
Min Price: The minimum price officially available for the first invoice (can be for 1-year, 2-year or 3-year plan).
*StableHost discount code is given in my review.
Limited-time offers with more discounts are not included in these prices. Check out if there are special offers currently available by visiting the hosting websites.
Worthy: This column contains my recommended hosts. (Under review label means that the host performs well or/and has a good potential in winning prizes in the Contest, but I want to have more proved records of its technical and support performance.)
Here’s a table with places within pricing categories:
Since it’s not always correct to compare hosts from different price categories together, I’ve broken down the monitored hosts into three categories to compete within as you can see above in the table.
The prices presented in this table are regular prices (i.e. applied after the first invoice). Note that prices for the first invoice (1-,2- or 3-year plan) are usually less (see them in the previous table). And special promo prices are not included (check them out on the hosting websites).
And here are the charts with the Hosting Performance Contest results in April 2017:
1. The golden medalist: MDDHosting (it’s in my list of the recommended hosts; see my review).
2. The silver medalist: SiteGround (it’s in my list of the recommended hosts; see my review).
3. The bronze medalist: GeekStorage (it’s in my list of the recommended hosts; see my review).
April 2017 Hosting Performance Contest Results – Notes
I use monitis.com services for uptime and full page load monitoring. The monitoring is performed from two locations in order to decrease chances of false alerts and make monitoring results more objective. You can read more about my methodology of monitoring here.
Here are the monthly monitoring reports screenshots:
These monitor checks are performed with 1-minute interval, which makes it great for detecting website uptime and downtime.
So, we need Uptime values from this table for finding the winner of our Contest.
By the way, downtime is detected if server response time (time-to-first-byte) is more than 10 seconds.
Other values (just for information):
– Response time is not that important for this Contest, because I’ve got a better indicator monitored, which is Full page load time (see below).
– Number of failures may be interesting to look at, but this is just an additional information to Uptime, which is more important for the overall hosting evaluation.
Only three last hosts on the screenshot have not passed the uptime benchmark test for great hosting. The other hosts I’m monitoring were up more than 99.9% in April. Websites on the uptime-failed hosting were not available for more than 43.2 minutes in total this month.
Here are some uptime details for the hosts in the order of the places the hosts took in the Contest in April 2017:
MDDHosting performed with great 99.95% uptime. It’s much above the highest standards (99.9%). My site hosted with this hosting was not available in April for just 0.05% which is 21.6 minutes.
SiteGround showed nearly perfect uptime 99.99%. It’s much above the benchmark (99.9%). Being unavailable for 0.01% means 4.3 minutes of downtime this month from a user point of view.
GeekStorage had also awesome uptime 99.98%. It’s much above the benchmark (99.9%). Being unavailable for 0.02% means 8.6 minutes this month.
HostWinds like the above host had perfect uptime 100%. No downtime registered this month!
StableHost had great uptime 99.97%. It’s much above the benchmark (99.9%). Being unavailable for 0.03% means 13 minutes this month.
LunarPages showed not superb uptime – 99.95%. And 0.05% (about 21.6 minutes) being unavailable. It’s much above the benchmark (99.9%).
A2Hosting had great uptime 99.96%. My site hosted with this host was unavailable for 0.04% (about 17.3 minutes). It’s above the benchmark set for the greatest hosts (99.9%).
InMotionHosting showed also great uptime 99.94% which means 0.06% (about 25.9 minutes) being unavailable. It’s well above the benchmark (99.9%).
VeeroTech had almost great uptime 99.89%. It’s a little bit below the benchmark level (99.9%). My site hosted with it was unavailable for 0.11% (or 47.5 minutes) this month. By the way, my second test site with this host had better uptime (99.96%) which is above the benchmark.
GreenGeeks managed to meet the highest uptime standards this month. Its uptime was 99.94%. My site hosted with this host was unavailable for 0.06% which is 25.9 minutes) this month.
Eleven2 failed with its uptime. My website on this host was up 99.27%, which means no one could access my website on this hosting 0.73% of the time in this month (equals to 5.26 hours).
MochaHost had uptime (99.63%) below the benchmark this month. My site hosted with this host was unavailable for 0.37% (2.66 hours).
HawkHost had very good uptime this month (99.96%). No one could access my website on this hosting just 0.04% of the time in this month (equals to 17.3 minutes).
Squidix was great with its uptime this month (99.94%). The site on this hosting was not available 0.06% of the time this month (about 25.9 minutes). It’s a well above the highest standards (99.9%).
GlowHost could pass uptime tests this month. 99.93% being available. And correspondingly, it was not available for only 0.07% of the time (30.2 minutes).
These tests are performed with 15-minute interval. It makes it a perfect real-user performance monitor. This monitor’s activity is equal to 192 unique visitors per day (about 5,760 unique visitors per month).
Avg Test Duration is the Full page load time, which is very clear and important factor for the Hosting Performance Contest.
We don’t need Uptime from this table because we have got a better (more precise) Uptime indicator from the previous table.
Also, we don’t need Failures from this table, because it’s less precise than the same indicator from the previous table.
But we will need Apdex, particularly its S (Satisfactory) part. This shows how much time (in %) the website loaded faster than 2.5 seconds. I call it Satisfactory Apdex.
MDDHosting won the gold in the monthly Contest thanks to its the best speed compared to other hosts and other metrics (uptime and Satisfactory Apdex) being above the benchmarks. This month its average speed (full page load time) was 0.94 seconds, which is awesome.
SiteGround was very fast (1.36 seconds on average). So, the silver medal. Superb!
GeekStorage was the third fastest among all other hosts this month (1.39 seconds). It’s a superb result for not expensive hosting like this!
HostWinds had a good speed (1.5 seconds full page load time). And it passed Satisfactory Apdex benchmark, which is an indication of a stable speed.
StableHost was fast. It had great full page load time (1.39 sec). But it did not manage to pass Satisfactory Apdex benchmark a little. That’s why this host goes lower in the rankings.
LunarPages had great speed (1.57 seconds full page load time). But it failed a bit Satisfactory Apdex benchmark.
A2Hosting had a good speed in general (1.71 seconds full page load time. But it failed Satisfactory Apdex benchmark a little.
InMotionHosting had also a good full page load time (1.74 sec). And it also failed Satisfactory Apdex benchmark.
VeeroTech had a good spped in general (1.74 seconds full page load time). But it did not pass uptime and Satisfactory Apdex benchmarks.
GreenGeeks had not bad speed in general (2.06 seconds full page load time), but it failed Satisfactory Apdex benchmark.
Eleven2, like in previous months, did not satisfy the strict rules of passing the benchmarks. And with its speed (2.07 seconds) it could not go higher in the rankings.
MochaHost had a also not bad speed (2.08 sec). But it failed both benchmarks.
HawkHost was comparatively slow (2.18 seconds). And failing Satisfactory Apdex benchmark put it close to the end of the rankings.
Squidix had comparatively low speed compared to others (2.26 seconds full page load time). And it failed Satisfactory Apdex benchmark.
GlowHost was significantly slower than all other monitored hosts in this Contest (3.19 sec). And as expected, it failed its Satisfactory Apdex (0.03%, i.e. almost all the time it was slower than 2.5 seconds). Only the last place.
Conclusion
The best hosts which have demonstrated the best performance in April 2017 are the medalists: MDDHosting, SiteGround and GeekStorage. It’s interesting that the medalists are from different pricing categories.
By the way, all the top winners have passed the strict benchmarks determined for great hosting.
As regards the winners in different pricing categories, here they are:
The best hosts in the higher pricing category ($8-10/mo) in April 2017 go in the following order: SiteGround, A2Hosting and InMotionHosting.
The best three hosts in the middle pricing category ($4-8/mo) in April 2017 are GeekStorage, HostWinds and StableHost.
The best three hosts in the most affordable pricing category (up to $4/mo) in April 2017 are MDDHosting, LunarPages and VeeroTech.
By the way, MDDHosting, although being in the most affordable hosting category, has won the gold medal among all the hosts in this Contest! Really awesome!
Please note, that I’m using the cheapest plans available on each of the monitored hosts.
It’s interesting that many hosts from the middle and even lower pricing category outperformed some hosts from the higher pricing category. And the hero of this Contest is MDDHosting which managed to leave all other more expensive hosts behind.
P.S.: Past and future Hosting Performance Contest results are (and will be) published on this page.
Also, you can see real-time performance charts of the hosts I monitor as well as historical data on the hosting performance on this page.
Other monthly roundups of this Hosting Performance Contest are available here.
And my recommended hosts are here.
BTW, I respect your privacy, and of course I don't send spam, affiliate offers or trade your emails. What I send is information that I consider useful.
