Here’s the 39th Monthly Hosting Performance Contest Roundup for April 2019!
I’ve been testing 15 hosts in a non-stop manner the whole month and I’ll show you the results below. In general, this contest’s results can be described as “Tighter performance among the hosts”.
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 2019!
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 20 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 2019 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 $5/mo), middle class (upto $8/mo) and more expensive ($8+/mo).
- SiteGround (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
- StableHost
- 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 HawkHost!.
In the Top-3 also go SiteGround and MDDHosting.
What’s remarkable about the winners this month is that two hosts from the most affordable pricing category have got into the top 3 best performing hosts.
HawkHost took the 1st place. Its full page load time (1.07) seconds was amazingly fast. And its uptime (99.91%) was really great and above the highest standards set for the greatest hosts (99.9%). My site was not available this month for 38.9 minutes. As regards Satisfactory Apdex, it was 99.48% which is a very well above the benchmark level (99%) determined for the greatest hosts. The host surpassed the benchmark tests and thanks to the best speed it made it this month!
The silver medalist is SiteGround.
Average full page load time of SiteGround was 1.08 seconds (it’s super fast). It was slower than the leader by just minimum 0.01 seconds. Its Uptime was simply perfect 100%. My site hosted with this host was available all the time during the whole month. And the host’s Satisfactory Apdex was also perfect 100% (i.e. all the time during this month the full page load time was less than 2.5 seconds). Perfect performance from all perspectives the third month in a row! All these parameters are much above the benchmarks specified for the greatest hosting performance. And since this hosting was the second fastest host among the hosts which exceeded all the benchmarks determined for the greatest hosts SiteGround wins the silver medal.
The bronze medal goes to MDDHosting.
MDDHosting performed wonderfully well and satisfied both benchmarks set for great hosts. Its average speed was 1.12 seconds which is astonishingly fast. It was slower than the leader by just 0.05 seconds. And its uptime (99.9%) was very high and exactly at the benchmark level (99.9%) set for the greatest hosts. My site hosted with this hosting was available all the time this month except 43.2 minutes. The host’s Satisfactory Apdex (99.9) was also very good and much above the highest standards (99%). Very solid performance!
GeekStorage took the 4th place. The host performed in this month as fast as 1.13 seconds which is impressively fast. It was slower than the leader by just 0.06 seconds. Its uptime was perfect 100%. My site hosted with this host was available all the time during the whole month. And the Satisfactory Apdex was also superb – 99.95% (99.95% of all time the speed was faster than 2.5 seconds, and it’s much above the highest standards set for great hosting which is 99%). Great performance!
A2Hosting took the 5th place with 1.18 seconds speed, which is brilliant. And it had very good uptime (99.91%). My site hosted with this host was not available this month for 28.9 minutes. This is above the highest standards (99.9%). Also, it had a perfect Satisfactory Apdex – 100%. It means that all the time in this month my testing site was faster than 2.5 seconds in this month. This is very well above the highest benchmark (99%) which is set for great hosts.
In this month GreenGeeks took the 6th place in the Contest. This month my site was on average as fast as 1.53 seconds that is great. And its uptime was almost perfect 99.99% which is much above the highest standards set for the best hosts (99.9%). My site hosted with this host was available all the time during this month except 4.3 minutes. And its Satisfactory Apdex was 99.81% (i.e. 99.81% of the time the full page load time of my website hosted with this host was less than 2.5 seconds). It was much above the highest standards set for the best hosts (99%).
In this month StableHost took the 7th place in the Contest. It was on average as fast as 1.6 seconds that is really fast. And its uptime (99.99%) was almost perfect and very much above the benchmark value set for the great hosts (99.9%). My site hosted with this host was not available during this month for just 4.3 minutes. And its Satisfactory Apdex was great – 99.39% (i.e. 99.39% of all the time full page load time of my website hosted with this host was less than 2.5 seconds). It’s very much above the benchmark level set for the great hosts (99%).
Other hosts could not meet at least one of the benchmarks set for the best hosting. However, the results of some hosts were very close to the benchmarks and pretty good in general.
LunarPages has got the 8th place this month. It performed as fast as 1.78 seconds which is very fast. Its uptime (100%) was simply perfect and of course above the highest standards level set for the greatest hosts (99.9%). My site hosted with this host was available all the time during this month. And the Satisfactory Apdex was above the highest standards as well – 99.21% (99.21% of the time this month the speed was faster than 2.5 seconds). It’s above the highest standards (99%). It is a great performance.
Other hosts could not meet at least one of the benchmarks set for the best hosting. However, the results of some hosts were very close to the benchmarks and pretty good in general.
HostWinds goes to the 9th place. Its 1.74 seconds full page load time was great. Its uptime (99.91%) was very good and above the benchmark level which is set for great hosts (99.9%). My site was not available for 38.9 minutes this month. This host had Satisfactory Apdex (98.88%) which was a little bit lower than the benchmark set for the greatest hosts (99%).
Squidix took the 10th place. Its average speed was brilliant (1.26 seconds full page load time). And its uptime was 99.87%, which is very high but a little bit below the benchmark level (99.9%). My site was not available for 56.2 minutes this month. And the host’s Satisfactory Apdex (99.44%) was well above the highest standards (99%). Because of a bit lower than the agreed uptime level, this host could not get higher in the rankings.
VeeroTech this month took the 11th place. The average speed was 1.27 seconds which is superb. But its uptime (99.82%) was lower than the highest standards set for the greatest hosts (99.9%). It didn’t satisfy the benchmark test (99.9%). My site hosted with this hosting was available all the time during this month except 1.3 hours. But the host’s Satisfactory Apdex (99.67%) was a above the highest standards (99%).
MochaHost took the 12th place this month.. Its speed was pretty good (1.63 seconds) unlike a couple of previous months. And its uptime (98.21%) was below the benchmark (99.9%). My site was not available for 12.9 hours this month. This is the worst uptime performance this month among the hosts. This host’s Satisfactory Apdex (96.47%) was okay, but pretty much below the benchmark level (99%).
InMotionHosting took the 13th place. The host had generally good speed (1.74 seconds on average). And it had a not bad uptime (99.87%). But it was still below the highest standards (99.9%). My site hosted with this hosting was 56.2 minutes offline. Also, its Satisfactory Apdex (95.96%) was a bit below the benchmark (99%).
Eleven2 got the 14th place. Its average speed (2.09 secs) was generally okay. Its uptime was 99.52%, which is below the benchmark level (99.9%). My site was not available for 3.46 hours this month. The host’s Satisfactory Apdex (92.33%) was below the highest standards (99%) too.
GlowHost went to the last 15th place this month. This host could not get higher because of its relatively slow speed. Its uptime (99.93%) was great, and above the benchmark level (99.9%) which is set to determine the greatest hosts. My site was not available for 30.24 minutes this month. And the host’s speed was slow (3.57 seconds). And as expected, its Satisfactory Apdex (0%) was the lowest possible value; and it was far from reaching the benchmark level (99%). The loading time of my test website was lower than 2.5 seconds during the whole month.
Generally, the competition of the monitored hosts this month was pretty tight as usual, especially among the better performing hosts.
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 2019:
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 20 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 20 minutes.
Superb Apdex-S: If Satisfactory Apdex benchmark (99%) passed (YES is very good).
Color areas: Green is superb and above the highest standards. The greener, the better. Yellow is good, but below the highest standards. Orange is not very good; worse than yellow. Red is comparatively 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).
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 2019:
1. The golden medalist: HawkHost (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: MDDHosting (it’s in my list of the recommended hosts; see my review).
April 2019 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.
Five hosts on the screenshot have not passed the uptime benchmark test (99.9%) for the greatest 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.
These tests are performed with 20-minute interval from two locations. It makes it a perfect real-user performance monitor. This monitor’s activity is equal to 144 unique visitors per day (about 4,320 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.
Conclusion
The best hosts which have demonstrated the best performance in April 2019 are the medalists: HawkHost, SiteGround and MDDHosting.
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+/mo) in this month go in the following order: SiteGround, A2Hosting and GreenGeeks.
The best three hosts in the middle pricing category ($5.01-8/mo) in this month are GeekStorage, HostWinds and Squidix.
The best three hosts in the most affordable pricing category (up to $5/mo) in this month are HawkHost, MDDHosting and StableHost.
Please note, that I’m using the cheapest plans available on each of the monitored hosts.
It’s noticeable as usual that some of the less expensive hosts outperformed hosts from more expensive categories.
And the hero of the Contest this month is SiteGround. This is the only one host this month which managed to get perfect 100% both Uptime and Satisfactory Apdex! Perfect job! By the way, such perfect performance goes this month the third time in a row (the two previous months: 1, 2)!
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Michael,
Thanks for such a dedicated artcile on hosting. Absolutely, I am new to some of the hosting services you mentioned here. Great efforts!
You are welcome! Feel free to let me know if you need a hosting advice!
As your blog name tells, you are great in researching whatever topics you take. Most of the hosting names (you mentioned here) are rarely discussed or compared. Good to see that you dig into it and let others know about it. Splendid work Michael.
Glad you liked it!
By the way, usually hosting companies are not really compared the objective way like this. It’s comparatively expensive as it requires paying for hosts as if you are using them the normal way and in addition you have to pay for monitoring service.