Struggling with a slow WordPress site? Concerned it's turning away visitors? You've come to the right place.
In this article, we'll delve into the top-performing fastest WordPress Hosting in the UK for 2023. I've put each one under the microscope, running thorough tests and research to make sure these services truly deliver on speed.
So, let's not delay. It's time to check out the fastest WordPress hosting providers in the UK for 2023. Let's get started!
7 Fastest WordPress Hosting In The UK
Hosting Provider | Nearest Location | Hosting Type | Starting Monthly Price | Offers | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Rocket.Net | London | Fully Managed WordPress | $30 | - | |
Nexcess | Surrey, and Sussex | Fully Managed WordPress | $19 | 55% Off For 3 Months | |
Chemicloud | London | Shared WordPress Hosting | $2.99 | - | |
WPX Hosting | London | Fully Managed WordPress | $25 | Use Coupon Code WHB50 For 50% Off First Month | |
Cloudways | London | Managed Cloud VPS | $11.5 (Including Compulsory Minimum $0.5 Offsite Backups) | $20 Hosting Credits | |
Hostinger | London | Shared WordPress Hosting | £2.59 | 10% Of All Annual Or Longer Duration Hosting Plans | |
WP Engine | London | Fully Managed WordPress | $30 | 20% Off |
Fastest WordPress Hosting In The UK Recommended By HostBits
If you are looking for a Fully Managed WordPress hosting provider, I highly recommend going with Rocket.Net. It not just provides server-level caching, but also optimizes your website on the fly with zero tweaks from your end. Plus, it's free edge-first caching technology powered by Cloudflare Enterprise CDN makes sure your website loads fast not just in the UK, but across the world.
Plus, they also back their fast web hosting with awesome customer support team. On the negative side, they might be a bit pricey for beginners, especially bloggers.
If you are low on the budget, you can try Chemicloud's Shared WordPress hosting plans. Each of the Chemicloud plans are powered by LiteSpeed WebServer for fast page load times.
Although, Chemicloud does not offer CDN Edge Caching, London-based server means, your website will load quickly across the UK. If you have a global audience, you can leverage Cloudflare's Automatic Platform Optimization (APO) for Edge Caching which will cost you just $5/month.
Chemicloud is great form the support pespective. But they don't offer WordPress-specific support like Rocket.Net.
7 Fastest WordPress Hosting In The UK (With Pros And Cons)
Below are some of the fastest options you can consider if you are looking for a WordPress Hosting in the UK.
1. Rocket.Net
4.7
Overall Rating
Summary: Rocket.Net leverages edge caching by Cloudflare along with website optimizations on the fly to make sure your website loads quickly without any tweaks. London based servers, multiple-vendor powered private cloud network, and great customer support are some of the other advantages of Rocket.Net
Quick Overview:
Pros Of Rocket.Net
Cons Of Rocket.Net
About Rocket.Net
Rocket.Net is a relatively new player, yet popular hosting providers that offers fully-managed WordPress hosting with servers in London. With its prime focus on delivering blazing-fast website loading speeds, it's a perfect fit for both beginners and tech enthusiasts looking for an efficient hosting solution.
Rocket.Net's success hinges on its robust server technology, employing a blend of Apache and NGINX webserver, complemented by the LiteSpeed PHP Processor. London-based servers, WordPress-optimized server-level caching, and Website optimization on the fly makes sure your website loads quickly in the UK with zero tweaks from your end.
For global audience, Rocket.Net also leverages Edge Cloud technology to store your site's data across 200+ worldwide locations. This innovative approach ensures that your website content is delivered to your visitors from the closest server location, guaranteeing optimum load times irrespective of your visitor's location.
Despite its exceptional offerings, Rocket.Net does have a downside - the lack of email hosting. Users need to rely on external providers for this service, which could pose as a slight inconvenience.
On a brighter note, the customer support at Rocket.Net has been touted as one of the best in the industry, evidenced by numerous positive reviews. The support team is known for its swift responses and effective problem-solving capabilities.
In conclusion, despite being a relative newcomer, Rocket.Net has carved a niche for itself in the competitive web hosting space, thanks to its innovative server technology, affordable pricing, and unwavering customer support. The platform's pros undoubtedly outweigh its cons, making it a top choice for WordPress hosting in the UK.
2. Nexcess
4.5
Overall Rating
Summary: Nexcess offers fully-managed WordPress, WooCommerce, and Magento hosting solutions at affordable pricing. Their server stack leverages NGINX as a webserver, and a reverse proxy for Apache. Server-level caching is handled by NGINX, while Cloudflare Edge caching ensures fast load times even for global audience.
Quick Overview:
Pros Of Nexcess
Cons Of Nexcess
About Nexcess
Nexcess, a sub-brand of the enterprise-grade hosting provider Liquid Web, specializes in providing Managed WordPress, WooCommerce, and Magento hosting. With two UK-based datacenters, Nexcess brings reduced latency to UK-based sites, delivering an enhanced user experience.
Nexcess' server stack, a blend of Apache and NGINX, with NGINX acting as a reverse proxy, assures optimal site performance. This setup, augmented by Varnish Cache, PHP OPCache, and free Object Pro cache plugin ensures a rapid and reliable site operation.
Furthermore, Nexcess enhances its offerings with the inclusion of Cloudflare Enterprise CDN with Edge Caching, free image compression, and iThemes Pro Security. This combination ensures faster global delivery of static content, quicker page loads, and robust security protection.
Nexcess distinguishes itself by providing a unique Plugin Performance Monitor, enabling users to understand the effect of individual plugins on website speed. This insight is valuable for WordPress sites, which often rely heavily on multiple plugins for various functionalities.
Although customer service might need some improvement, Nexcess’s broad feature set, robust server technology, and thoughtful performance monitoring tools make it a compelling choice for those seeking reliable and fastest Managed WordPress hosting in the UK.
3. Chemicloud
4.5
Overall Rating
Summary: Chemicloud isn't a fully-managed WordPress hosting provider. However, it does offer fast shared hosting plans powered by LiteSpeed Webserver, PHP 8, and NVMe storage. While they don't offer any enterprise grade CDN, London-based servers ensure fast page-load times for UK users.
Quick Overview:
Pros Of Chemicloud
Cons Of Chemicloud
About Chemicloud
Chemicloud is a relatively-newer and lesser know web hosting provider that was founded as late as 2016. However, despite being the new kid on the block, it gained popularity thatnks to its performance-driven infrastructure built on LiteSpeed Web Server, PHP 8, and NVME storage.
The hosting provider maintains a global presence with servers stationed at various locations worldwide including London for the UK visitors. However, if you have a global audience, you might have to rely on the free Cloudflare CDN, or pay for Cloudflare APO as Chemicloud does not bundle in any premium CDN, which is understandable at their price point.
Although Chemicloud does not offer fully-managed WordPress plans, they provide shared WordPress hosting with CloudLinux for efficient resource allocation. With all its cons, Chemicloud is still a viable option, especially for beginners, thanks to its super-affordable pricing and reliable customer support.
4. WPX Hosting
4.5
Overall Rating
Summary: WPX Hosting is a LiteSpeed powered fully-managed WordPress hosting provider with servers located in London. It comes with a free CDN, WPX XDN with a relatively lower 35+ end points. While, WPX does not optimize your website code on the fly, WPX customer support team offers free basic WordPress website optimization service.
Quick Overview:
Pros Of WPX Hosting
Cons Of WPX Hosting
About WPX Hosting
Initially conceived as Traffic Planet Hosting by Terry Kyle in 2013, WPX Hosting has steadily carved a niche for itself within the managed WordPress hosting space. Despite a rebranding exercise in 2016, WPX has remained resolute in its core ethos - providing swift and secure hosting solutions optimized for WordPress.
What sets WPX apart is its utilization of the ultra-fast LiteSpeed WebServer technology, a feature only offered by a handful of hosting companies. This empowers your website with impressive load times, particularly beneficial if you're targeting visitors in the UK where one of their three global data centers is located.
WPX hosting not only provides server-side caching but also offers free WordPress optimization services. However, it's essential to note that they cap the number of PHP workers to three per website, which remains unchanged across all their plans.
WPX's commitment to support doesn't stop at hosting-related issues. They pledge free malware removal and even a website fix guarantee if your site goes down, allowing you to maintain focus on your business.
5. Cloudways
4.4
Overall Rating
Summary: Cloudways is a Digital Ocean offshoot offering managed Cloud VPS solutions on Digital Ocean, AWS, and GCP servers. It features a server stack, ThunderStack, that includes an Apache and NGINX combo, Memcached (with Redis as an alternative), and Varnish cache. For VPS of 2GB or larger, a free Redis-fueled Object Cache Pro plugin replaces Memcached. Additionally, Cloudflare's Enterprise CDN with Full Page Caching is available at a nominal fee.
Quick Overview:
Pros Of Cloudways
Cons Of Cloudways
About Cloudways
Cloudways is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) provider that allows you to choose your server from the likes of Digital Ocean, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Platform. This means you get the best of all worlds - world-class cloud infrastructure, combined with Cloudways' server management and optimization expertise.
Cloudways leverages an optimized "Thunderstack" server stack that brings together the best of both worlds—an NGINX and Apache web server combo along with the speed of Varnish cache.
The object caching is handled by Memcached, with an option to switch to Redis cache. However, for 2GB RAM and higher servers, the Object Caching is handled by the Redis-powered Object Cache Pro plugin.
Cloudways also sports MariaDB, a powerful and speedy alternative to MySQL, which takes care of your database needs. However, if you're moving from a MySQL-based WordPress site, your existing database stays as it is and is not migrated to MariaDB.
If you have global traffic, you can purchase Cloudflare's Enterprise CDN which offers full-page caching at a nominal cost.
While the current Cloud VPS setup is only server, managed, Cloudways is gearing up to launch its fully-managed WordPress hosting solution, which is designed to auto-scale resources during high-traffic periods.
Cloudways doesn't offer any file managers. So, you will have to stick to the traditional FPT, SFTP, or SSH for managing your server. Even email hosting and transactional emails are available only as a paid add-on.
6. Hostinger
4.3
Overall Rating
Summary: Hostinger is one of the most popular shared hosting providers in the web hosting industry known for its super affordable hosting plans. However, despite the affordable tag, all Hostinger plans come with LiteSpeed WebServer and a pre-installed LiteSpeed Cache plugin that makes your website load pretty quickly with zero tweaks.
Quick Overview:
Pros Of Hostinger
Cons Of Hostinger
About Hostinger
Hostinger isn't a newcomer to the web hosting market. In fact, it's been around since 2004 when it was established as Hosting Media. Over the years, it has launched various subsidiary companies, including 000Webhost and Hosting24 in 2007 and 2008 respectively, before rebranding itself as Hostinger in 2011.
Today, it expanded its portfolio even further, with ownership of Niagahoster, an Indonesian web hosting company, and Weblink, a Brazilian counterpart. Despite the global expansions, Hostinger has stayed true to its core mission - providing budget-friendly and easy-to-use web hosting solutions, making it one of the most popular choices for beginners and small businesses.
Backed by LiteSpeed WebServer technology, Hostinger's plans are an excellent choice if speed is a top priority. Their shared hosting plans, although not as robust as fully managed WordPress hosting, offer a range of features and perks that provide considerable value for money.
However, the biggest disadvantage of Hostinger is the quality of its customer support. It's on the slower side, and does not cover WordPress-specific support, which might be a deal breaker for many.
7. WP Engine
4.4
Overall Rating
Summary: WP Engine is a renowned name in the Managed WordPress hosting industry. It not only offers entry-level plans for beginners, but also enterprise-grade customized VPS plans for high-traffic websites. WP Engine uses NGINX servers, which although faster than Apache + NGINX combo, does not support .htaccess files.
Quick Overview:
Pros Of WP Engine
Cons Of WP Engine
About WP Engine
WP Engine is a premium and one of the most popular Managed WordPress hosting providers in the industry. They offer a robust solution that caters to the requirements of beginners, as well as large enterprises around the globe.
WP Engine leverages infrastructure from the Google Cloud Platform for all of its plans. However, for high-tier customized plans, users have the option to go with AWS servers.
London-based data centers of GCP ensure faster-load times for UK visitors. For a global audience, WP Engine integrates Cloudflare Enterprise CDN with all their hosting plans, which accelerates the delivery of your website's content to users worldwide.
Also, WP Engine offers an optional geolocation targeting feature, that allows you to customize the page that your visitor sees based on their geographic location.
Talking about server technology, WP Engine uses NGINX webserver with server-level caching to ensure your website loads quickly to your visitors. However, this setup also means the .htaccess file is not supported.
Another drawback of WP Engine is that it has a long list of disallowed plugins that can limit your site's functionality and flexibility. Plus, transactional emails are heavily restricted.
Despite these limitations, WP Engine remains a solid hosting option, especially for those who prefer to focus on their business and leave the technicalities of server optimization to the experts.
How To Choose The Fastest WordPress Hosting In The UK
Here is a comprehensive guide on how to select the best WordPress hosting in the UK for a lightning-fast website.
1. Prioritize Server Location: The location of your server plays a crucial role in your website's speed. A nearby server leads to faster server response times, leading to quicker page load times. So, choose a hosting provider with servers located in or near the UK.
2. Check CDN Availability: If you are targeting multiple countries, or if you have a global audience, it makes sense to leverage a CDN technology to speed up your website for visitors located far away from your origin server. A CDN that offers full-page caching should be preferred.
3. Look for WordPress-Specific Hosting: WordPress-optimized hosting services are specifically tailored to support WordPress sites, often resulting in better performance. These hosts usually provide an optimized server configuration that can handle the specific requirements of WordPress, resulting in a speedier website.
4. Check Webserver Technology: Webserver technology is a crucial factor that can greatly speed up your WordPress website. Most Managed WordPress hosting companies either provide Apache + NGINX combo or NGINX-only webservers. However, you should prefer LiteSpeed Webservers as they are much faster than NGINX or Apache Webservers.
5. Server-Level Caching And WordPress Optimizations: Most Managed WordPress hosting companies do offer server-level caching, but shared hosting companies usually don't offer the same. Also, some hosting companies go a step ahead, and either optimize your website on the fly or offer free website optimization services.
6. Look for Scalability: Your hosting provider should offer scalable solutions so that you can upgrade your plan to get more resources for growing your website.
7. Consider the PHP Version: Newer PHP versions are designed to be faster. So, make sure your web hosting provider offers the latest PHP versions.
8. Security: Security of your website is one important, but often ignored factor. Choose a web hosting provider that offers security-related features like Web Application Firewall, DDoS Protection, Malware protection, and removal, as well as, cleaning a hacked website.
9. Check Customer Reviews: Customer reviews can give you insight into a host's real-life performance. Look for user reviews by experts, Quora, and Reddit users, as well as, some closed Facebook groups on WordPress hosting.
10. Test the Support: Make sure your hosting provider offers quick and reliable support, including WordPress-specific support.
Final Words
While you have tons of options when it comes to choosing the Fastest WordPress Hosting in the UK. However, after extensive testing and thorough research, I drafted this list of the best among them.
Rocket.Net is a great option if you are looking for a Fully-Managed WordPress hosting provider, that offers server-level caching and also optimizes your WordPress website on the fly. Another advantage of using Rocket.net is that it doesn't restrict you from using any plugins.
However, if you're looking for an affordable shared WordPress hosting provider, Chemicloud is a great option. It provides LiteSpeed Webserver which is considered to be the fastest webserver, and much faster than Apache or NGINX. Apart from the speed, Chemicloud does well in the customer support department too.
Cloudways can be considered if you are looking for an affordable option for a high-traffic website. However, if you go with Cloudways, I highly recommend choosing the Digital Ocean Premium Servers. For global visitors, make sure to select the Cloudflare CDN addon.
Having said that, Nexcess, WPX Hosting, Hosting, and WP Engine are close contenders too. So, whatever you pick, I am sure you won't be disappointed.
