Hosting Performance Contest – March 2020 Roundup (15 Hosts Tested: Less Than A Second)

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Here’s the 50th Monthly Hosting Performance Contest Roundup for March 2020!
I’ve been testing 15 hosts in a non-stop manner the whole month and I’ll show you the results below. The interesting observation is that the hosts with the speed below one second are still in the majority.

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 performed in March 2020!

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.

March 2020 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 LunarPages!

In the Top-3 also go GreenGeeks and VeeroTech.

LunarPages took the 1st place. Its full page load time (0.68) seconds was astonishingly fast. And its uptime (99.98%) was brilliant and much above the highest standards set for the greatest hosts (99.9%). My site was not available this month for just 8.9 minutes. As regards Satisfactory Apdex, it was just perfect 100% which is of course much above the benchmark level (99%) determined for the greatest hosts. The host surpassed the benchmark tests and thanks to the best speed it got the gold this month!

The silver medalist is GreenGeeks.

GreenGeeks performed wonderfully well and satisfied both benchmarks set for the greatest hosts. Its average speed was 0.69 seconds which is amazingly fast. It was slower than the leader by just 0.01 seconds. And its uptime (99.99%) was almost perfect and much above the benchmark level (99.9%) set for the greatest hosts. My site hosted with this hosting was available all the time this month except 4.5 minutes. The host’s Satisfactory Apdex (100%) was simply perfect and of course much above the highest standards (99%). And since this hosting was the second fastest host among the hosts which exceeded all the benchmarks determined for the greatest hosts GreenGeeks wins the silver medal.

The bronze medal goes to VeeroTech.

Average full page load time of VeeroTech was 0.74 seconds (it’s super fast). It was slower than the leader by just 0.06 seconds. Its Uptime was almost perfect 99.99%. It’s very much above the benchmark level set for the greatest hosts (99.9%). My site hosted with this host was available all the time during the whole month except 4.5 minutes. And the host’s Satisfactory Apdex was very good 99.86% (i.e. 99.86% of the time during this month the full page load time was less than 2.5 seconds). It’s much above the benchmark level (99%) set for the greatest hosts. Since all these parameters are above the benchmarks specified for the greatest hosting performance and this hosting was the third fastest host among the hosts which exceeded all the benchmarks determined for the greatest hosts VeeroTech wins the bronze medal.

A2 Hosting took the 4th place. The host performed in this month as fast as 0.85 seconds which is impressively fast. Its uptime was very high 99.93%. It’s above the benchmark level (99.9%). My site hosted with this host was available all the time during the whole month except 31.3 minutes. And the Satisfactory Apdex was awesome – 99.28% (99.28% of the 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!

HawkHost took the 5th place. Its average speed was brilliant (0.9 seconds full page load time). The uptime was very high 99.97%, which is very much above the benchmark level (99.9%). My site was not available for 13.4 minutes this month. And the host’s Satisfactory Apdex (99.55%) was well above the highest standards (99%). Brilliant performance!

In this month MDDHosting took the 6th place in the Contest. This month my site was on average as fast as 0.92 seconds that is great. And its uptime was simply perfect 100% which is of course 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. And its Satisfactory Apdex was also perfect 100% (i.e. 100% 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%). Superb!

In this month Eleven2 took the 7th place in the Contest. It was on average as fast as 1.04 seconds that is really fast. And its uptime (99.96%) was really good and very much above the benchmark value set for the great hosts (99.9%). My site hosted with this host was available during this month all the time except 17.9 minutes. And its Satisfactory Apdex was very good – 99.1% (i.e. 99.1% of all the time full page load time of my website hosted with this host was less than 2.5 seconds). It’s above the benchmark level set for the great hosts (99%). Awesome.

SiteGround goes to the 8th place. Its 1.06 seconds full page load time was very good. Its uptime (99.9%) was great and exactly at the benchmark level which is set for great hosts. My site was available all the time during this month except 44.6 minutes this month. This host had great Satisfactory Apdex (99.59% of the time my website hosted with this host was faster than 2.5 seconds). It was much above the benchmark set for the greatest hosts (99%). Impressive results!

HostWinds has got the 9th place this month. It performed as fast as 1.14 seconds which is pretty fast. Its uptime (99.97%) was very high and 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 except 13.4 minutes. And the Satisfactory Apdex was much above the highest standards, it was perfect – 100% (100% of the time this month the speed was faster than 2.5 seconds). Great.

GeekStorage this month took the 10th place. The average speed was 1.35 seconds which is fast. And its Satisfactory Apdex (99.19%) was a higher than the highest standards (99%). Uptime (99.99%) was almost perfect and much above the highest standards set for the greatest hosts (99.9%). My site hosted with this hosting was available all the time during this month except 4.5 minutes. Really good 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.

StableHost took the 11th place with 0.71 seconds speed, which is brilliant. But it had uptime (92.28%) which is much below the highest standards (99.9%) set for the greatest hosts. My site hosted with this host was not available this month for 57.44 hours. Please note that this is likely that it was a local failure and not the whole hosting issue. But anyway, I report the real-life performance and this should be counted as downtime. As regards Satisfactory Apdex – 98.87% it was pretty high. It means that 98.87% of 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. Failed uptime did not let this host get higher in the rankings.

MochaHost took the 12th place this month.. Its speed was awesome (0.93 seconds). But its uptime (99.57%) was below the benchmark (99.9%) set for the greatest hosts. My site was not available for 3.2 hours this month. This host’s Satisfactory Apdex (100%) was simply perfect and of course much above the benchmark level (99%). Because of the failed uptime benchmark test this host did not get higher in the rankings.

InMotionHosting took the 13th place. The host had generally very good speed (1.16 seconds on average). And it had uptime (99.91%) which is above the highest standards (99.9%) which is great. My site hosted with this hosting was just 40.2 minutes offline. But its Satisfactory Apdex (96.59%) was below the benchmark (99%). 96.59% of the time the site was faster than 2.5 seconds.

Squidix got the 14th place. Its average speed (1.45 secs) was great in fact. And its uptime was simply perfect 100%, which is of course much above the benchmark level (99.9%). My site was available all the time this month. But the host’s Satisfactory Apdex (98.07%) was a bit below the highest standards (99%). Great performance anyway.

GlowHost went to the last 15th place. This host could not get higher because of its relative slowness. Its uptime (99.77%) was also not brilliant and quite below the benchmark level (99.9%) which is set to determine the greatest hosts. My site was not available for 1.71 hours this month. And the host’s speed was pretty slow (2.81 seconds). And as expected, its Satisfactory Apdex (0.17%) was very low; and it was far from reaching the benchmark level (99%). The loading time of my test website was worse than 2.5 seconds during almost the whole month.

Generally, the competition of the monitored hosts this month was pretty tight as usual, especially among the better performing hosts. The competence has become more strained these months.

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 March 2020:

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 March 2020:

1. The golden medalist: LunarPages.
2. The silver medalist: GreenGeeks.
3. The bronze medalist: VeeroTech (it’s in my list of the recommended hosts; see my review).

March 2020 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.

Just three 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 March. The websites on the uptime-failed hosting were not available for more than 44.6 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 March 2020 are the medalists: LunarPages, GreenGeeks and VeeroTech.

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: LunarPages, GreenGeeks and A2Hosting.

The best three hosts in the middle pricing category ($5.01-8/mo) in this month are VeeroTech, Eleven2 and HostWinds.

The best three hosts in the most affordable pricing category (up to $5/mo) in this month are HawkHost, MDDHosting and GeekStorage.

Please note, that I’m using the cheapest plans available on each of the monitored hosts.

And the hero of the Contest this month is MDDHosting. This is the only hosting which got a perfect performance in terms of Uptime and Satisfactory Apdex!

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