Fast web hosts today are not just fast in regions with data centers but also in those without. With great features and excellent support at the right price, fast web hosting providers can help your website grow immensely.
Which is the #1 FASTEST web host? That definitely goes to SiteGround, powered by Google Cloud with SSD persistent storage!
We made this list based on our first hand experience – we bought web hosting accounts, set up test sites, measured their speeds and uptime, and narrowed them down to the 7 best fastest web hosting providers (all <180 ms avg. speed) for you.
Note
GrowBig
136.9 ms
$9.99/mo
We’ve made it clear before that we absolutely LOVE SiteGround. They’re officially WordPress endorsed (it’s kind of a big deal, guys!), and that kind of recognition is only given out to web hosts that meet WordPress’s lofty criteria.
Our preferred package is their entry level GrowBig Plan; super affordable at only $9.99 per month but comes packed with benefits and features. You get to enjoy priority support, SuperCacher, Automatic Daily Backups and Free restores.
Speed wise, SiteGround is ranked A+ with a worldwide average of 136.9 ms.
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | Sao Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 68 ms | 33 ms | 96 ms | 233 ms | 181 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 243 ms | 203 ms | 165 ms | 29 ms | 118 ms |
They’ve got 6 data centers spread out across 4 continents, and all of them are utilizing the Google Cloud Platform! Pick one that’s closest to your target audience to optimize their site load speeds.
Cloudflare activation is integrated into the system, so if you want even faster speeds, no problem – you can do so with a click of a button.
We actually did a server speed test for SiteGround Cloud hosting as well, with excellent results. If that’s what you’re looking for, hop on over to check out our in-depth SiteGround review!
Premium Shared
143 ms
$5.99/mo
If you’re new in the online business game, then you best pay attention cause you’re gonna want to read about Hostinger.
At their price point, you don’t really expect quality web hosting, but they are surprisingly fast! We’ve got several test sites with them hosted in 3 of their data centers, so you can see how well they perform in each continent. Here are the results taken from our server speed test.
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | Sao Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 69 ms | 28 ms | 98 ms | 239 ms | 130 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 331 ms | 233 ms | 165 ms | 38 ms | 100 ms |
The American data center is really fast, returning a worldwide average of 143.1 ms. Requests from further away like Singapore, Sydney and Bangalore seems to have slightly sluggish response times, but that’s why Hostinger created so many data centers around the globe – to make sure your site is fast no matter where your customers are.
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | Sao Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 194 ms | 229 ms | 246 ms | 5 ms | 349 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 99 ms | 191 ms | 70 ms | 212 ms | 163 ms |
The Singaporean server pulled a superb worldwide average with 175.8 ms. Now these guys are really quick in Singapore, Sydney, Bangalore and Japan, but obviously not as snappy in the West, due to the distance.
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | Sao Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 142 ms | 100 ms | 54 ms | 236 ms | 209 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 314 ms | 265 ms | 235 ms | 84 ms | 11 ms |
Their European server performed exceptionally well in Europe and America, but they’re not too quick in the other countries. However, they still scored an excellent worldwide average of 165 ms.
Aside from speed, Hostinger has an excellent support team, which serves over 20 countries in their native language! With the inclusion of 1 free domain, 20GB SSD storage, unlimited emails and bandwidth – Hostinger really packs a full punch with their plans, especially for those that are just starting out.
Read our Hostinger review to find out why it’s our #2 web host!
Turbo Boost
150 ms
$14.99/mo
Those in the know are aware that A2 Hosting takes their speed very seriously. They’ve invested a lot to make their servers speedy and fast, and they’ve got response time to show it.
If you’ve never heard of their Turbo Servers, they’re specially tweaked to give us massive speed boosts. When combined with their Turbo Cache, the servers can load sites up to 20 times quicker than standard servers.
Their Optimized Applications (Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, Magento, Opencart, etc) are all customized to run more effectively, which all adds up to reduce loading time.
To handle client requests all over the globe, A2 Hosting has set up 4 data centers – 2 in the US, 1 in Amsterdam, and 1 in Singapore – so that we can pick the best server location to suit our needs.
Check out our server speed tests:
The first test we ran, we used a test site hosted on A2’s Turbo Boost Plan, with the data center located in the US. The results were great with a wholesome worldwide average of 149.8 ms, with the slowest being Bangalore at 433 ms.
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | Sao Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 63 ms | 10 ms | 129 ms | 234 ms | 145 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 433 ms | 214 ms | 147 ms | 13 ms | 110 ms |
Next, we tried the Drive plan with the server hosted in Singapore. The worldwide average tested slightly slower at 173 ms, but pings from Sao Paulo didn’t do too well coming in at above 300 ms.
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | Sao Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 172 ms | 212 ms | 278 ms | 6 ms | 316 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 163 ms | 141 ms | 67 ms | 218 ms | 159 ms |
So if you want to host with A2, make sure you go with the Turbo Boost plan; it’s slightly more costly, but at least you’ll get what you pay for!
See our full A2 Hosting review for more information!
EcoSite Pro
118.6 ms
$7.95/mo
They’ve got everything that makes a premium web host.
Solid reliable data centers, strong support team, cutting edge infrastructure, Git compatibility, and CloudFlare integration, that works.
But what makes them special is not how they make things load faster (that’s already a given) it’s what they do with the company. GreenGeeks gives back to the planet by investing 3 times of every amp they use into renewable energy!
You will be making the world a greener place when you host your website with GreenGeeks – literally!
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | Sao Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 ms | 23 ms | 86 ms | 218 ms | 145 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 208 ms | 186 ms | 151 ms | 20 ms | 99 ms |
At a worldwide average of 118.6 ms, they are ranked A+, faster than Google’s recommended response time and our top 3 hosts. However, their data centers are based only in the US, Canada and Amsterdam, so if you’re targeting Asia, you might not be able to experience them at their optimum speed.
GreenGeeks EcoSite Pro plan starts at only $7.95 per month, but remember that you’re not the only one benefiting from their service – you’re doing the planet a favour just by hosting with GreenGeeks!
Head over to our complete GreenGeeks review to learn more!
Starter
179.5 ms
$30/mo
Next on our list of fastest web hosts is Kinsta Managed WordPress Hosting. Built using Google’s very own cloud platform, Kinsta leverages on Google’s cutting edge tech and 24 15 data centers!
They’ve had a decade’s worth of experience with WordPress, and they’ve dedicated that experience into creating the best and fastest Managed WordPress Hosting solution you’ve seen.
With their next gen architecture, infrastructure, and implementation of KeyCDN Kinsta is able to load your hosted sites in literally a fraction of a second, as evidenced by our speed test results:
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | Sao Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 130 ms | 95 ms | 10 ms | 287 ms | 203 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 487 ms | 266 ms | 221 ms | 83 ms | 13 ms |
Their speeds are pretty impressive, with just 10 ms in London and the worst performing one at 487 ms in Bangalore.
They scored a worldwide average of 179.5 ms, which prompted us to say that Kinsta (and KeyCDN) is truly a fast web hosting. The only thing that stopped us from ranking them any higher is their hefty price tag with their entry level plans starting $30 per month.
Read our Kinsta review to see if it’s the web host for you!
Start
159 ms
$7.95/mo
ScalaHosting has been around since 2007, which means they’ve had plenty of time to research and refine their web hosting service.
Looks like they put that time to good use, because they’ve managed to develop features in house which helps them keep their prices reasonable, such as their custom SPanel CMS and SShield Security System.
Their services range from email hosting to managed cloud VPS, but we’ll be comparing their entry-level Start web hosting plan for the purposes of this article.
Speedwise, ScalaHosting did pretty well, holding their own against the top web hosts in the list.
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | Sao Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 178 ms | 119 ms | 43 ms | 183 ms | 228 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 147 ms | 286 ms | 250 ms | 116 ms | 37 ms |
The test site we built for the purpose of this comparison has the data center based in Europe, and it does surprisingly well, only dropping to speeds above 200 ms in Japan, Sydney and Sao Paulo.
If your target audience is located in America, you’ve got the option of picking their USA servers which should do pretty well with users located there.
Our biggest concern with ScalaHosting is that they don’t have any data centers closer to Asia, which means that you’re gonna have sloth-like sites if your visitors mostly come from that side of the world.
Other than that, ScalaHosting provides quite the bang for your buck, at only $7.95 a month for almost unlimited features, free migrations, SSL and domains, and an award winning support team that works around the clock to keep their users happy.
Hop over to our in-depth ScalaHosting review to find out more!
Basic
153 ms
$5.45/mo
One of the more prominent brands out there, Bluehost has a good 16 years of experience under their belt as a web host.
Just like SiteGround, they’re recommended by WordPress for their dedication to their infrastructure and excellent 24/7 support team.
Speedwise, they’re pretty good too! They have got a solid A+ with a worldwide average of 153 ms.
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | Sao Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 ms | 78 ms | 183 ms | 193 ms | 164 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 330 ms | 168 ms | 125 ms | 92 ms | 174 ms |
The pings from US did very well at sub 80 ms each but results from countries further away were a little slower, dipping down to 330 ms in India.
Unfortunately, Bluehost is not very forthcoming about the number of data centers they have – we only know of their 1 data center which is located in the USA. We are also not allowed to pick the data center we’d like to use with Bluehost, which is the reason they’re this far down the list.
At only $5.95 per month, we still think that Bluehost kicks ass and gives us great value!
See our full Bluehost review to learn more!
Core web vitals will soon be used as part of Google’s ranking criteria. It focuses on 3 different aspects of page experience – Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift.
Out of the 3, the first 2 are highly dependent on speed!
Thinkwithgoogle also mentioned that you’ll want your site to load under 1 second because the probability of users bouncing when site load speed takes 1 – 3 second is a whopping 32%!
In other words, people won’t just leave your site if it takes too long to load – it might lose out in ranking compared to faster loading sites!
This is why you shouldn’t just be looking at cheap web hosting – you may save more on expenses but you’ll be losing out in thousands of missed sales opportunities.
Here’s a few more things you should know about before we get to the details:
It’s similar but not the same, like the difference between hardware and software in your iPhone. No matter how optimized the user interface may be, your phone will still feel sluggish if the hardware can’t keep up. It’s important to keep both hardware and software up to date so everything runs smoothly and speedy.
Server speed is measured by testing its response time – the amount of time it takes for the server to respond to a request from a client.
The effective reach of the data center, hardware specs, server setup and their network planning.
According to Google, the optimal server response time is 200 ms. Sites should be built according to Google’s Web Vital metrics in mind, especially the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and First Input Delay (FID). Anything slower and sites will start feeling sluggish.
Our unique server speed checker calculates the average server response times across 10 locations worldwide. Scores below 180 ms are ranked “A+” and scores from 181 ms to 210 ms are ranked “A”.
Note that all of the web hosts that appear here are superb and are ranked A+, so you basically can’t go wrong with any of them. We’ve ranked them according to our preference, but feel free to make your own choices!
Here is a recap of our top 3 fastest web hosting provider:
If we had to just stick with one web hosting brand for the rest of our lives, we’d most definitely go with SiteGround. All the brands featured in this article are awesome, with top tier service and tech, but SiteGround takes the cake with the fastest shared hosting we’ve seen, comparable to other brands’ cloud hosting speeds!
They utilize a combination of hardware and software to make them the FASTEST shared host, such as:
During February 2020, SiteGround made the announcement that they’re adopting the Google Cloud Platform to host part of their infrastructure. This news is pretty exciting, as it means that users will get to take advantage of Google’s acclaimed state-of-the-art network. Site load speed is increased, server downtime is decreased!
This speaks volumes about their dedication to improving their service & speed!
Paired with one of the best customer service teams we’ve had the pleasure of dealing with, SiteGround just blows the competition away. Pay them a visit at their official website.
As always, do drop us a message if you have any questions.
If you’ve got the right server software, hardware and technical expertise, yes you can. Though your website performance will most likely be nowhere as reliable as those hosted on professional web hosting services. Hosting your own website is generally not worth the effort for the average user, and you’ll be better off just hosting your site through web hosting companies.
Yes. There are plenty of free web hosting services around that you can utilize for your website. However, they come with performance restrictions, handicaps, and ads displayed on your website (which you have no control over). If you’re looking to actually build traffic and generate revenue through your site, we would strongly advise against going for these free services.
Shared web hosting costs an average of $12 to $420 per year – excluding domain and SSL. Domains would typically cost you $10 – $20 a year, while SSL can cost anything from as little as $8 up to $1000 per annum. These can build up to cost quite a bit, so we highly recommend a web hosting service that offers both domain AND SSL for free, like Hostinger and SiteGround.
SiteGround is our preferred choice of fast WordPress hosting. Powered by Google Cloud, they average at a global server response time of 136.9 ms. They also have worldwide data center presence across 4 major continents.
If you’re building a WordPress site targeting the USA, Bluehost would be the preferred web hosting choice. If it’s a non-WordPress site with a global audience, it’s better to pick GoDaddy. Note that SiteGround would be a great choice for both. They’re officially recommended by WordPress.org, and they have 6 data centers across 4 continents.
