13 Best Hosting for Website Speed (Feb. 2024)

The average online customer has an attention span of a mere eight seconds. This means that your website must capture attention faster than it takes someone to tie a shoelace. While businesses constantly innovate to entice consumers, that may not matter if they have a slow website.

Speed impacts the purchasing decisions of more than 70% of online shoppers. A slow website is a culmination of several factors, including substandard code, heavy, unoptimized media files (including images), and inefficient web hosting.

A top-notch web hosting plan can solve many of those problems by fostering fast, secure, and reliable website performance. Read on to learn about the best hosting providers for website speed.

Shared hosting is the most basic web hosting type offered by most, if not all prominent web hosting providers. It involves sharing server resources between multiple websites. Shared hosting is also the cheapest form of web hosting.

InMotion Hosting is another shared hosting provider with excellent server speed and performance. The developer-friendly web host has two datacenters in the US, and it recently established a European datacenter in Amsterdam, Netherlands. This makes InMotion Hosting a good option for users in the US and Europe.

We recommend its Core plan for SMBs as a cost-effective and feature-packed shared hosting choice. The Launch plan is higher-priced but even quicker due to its unlimited NVMe SSDs and UltraStack-powered hosting.

A2 Hosting is one the most trustworthy web hosts around — and it is fast. The provider offers the quickest shared hosting plans in the world, thanks to its Turbo Servers and other performance-oriented optimizations. The web host’s STARTUP plan is a good shared hosting option for beginners.

If your budget is not tight, we recommend the TURBO BOOST plan. As the name suggests, it is equipped with Turbo Servers for ultra-fast website performance.

Hostinger should be one of your first picks for shared hosting due to its dependable, budget-friendly, and feature-rich plans. It also happens to be one of the quickest web hosts in the business, with datacenters in the US, Brazil, Europe, and Asia. Hostinger offers four shared hosting plans, of which the Single plan is all you need to build a basic website.

The Business and Cloud Startup plans offer increased performance and NVMe SSDs. Hostinger has amazing deals and discounts during certain times of the year, so keep an eye out.

In cloud hosting, a website resides on a system of interconnected servers (the cloud) rather than on a physical server. This hosting type provides a highly flexible and secure cloud infrastructure for your business.

Kamatera is a cloud hosting stalwart renowned for its developer support. Its enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure offers great flexibility. Kamatera is also one of the fastest cloud hosting providers with datacenters in the US, Europe, and Asia. You can select and create your own server for cloud hosting from its provided options.

You can self-provision and self-configure your cloud server through Kamatera’s simple management portal.

IONOS is a leader in cheap hosting and one of our favorite web hosts. It perfectly blends affordability with functionality and is among the fastest web hosting providers in the business. IONOS’s cloud hosting setup provides uncompromising performance. You can build a custom cloud hosting environment with drag-and-drop components in just a few clicks.

You may find some difficulty arriving at the IONOS cloud hosting page. Click on Products, followed by vServer, and Cloud Servers. You will also find a few options for VPS hosting (under vServer) if that interests you.

Cloudways provides fast and reliable managed cloud hosting services. It is probably the most flexible cloud web host in the business, as it offers DigitalOcean, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud datacenter plan options. It also includes plenty of features in each plan.

Additionally, you can reap the benefits of effortless website migration, SSH and SFTP access, team management provisions, and optional add-ons, including WordPress capabilities and email hosting.

Virtual private server (VPS) hosting involves providing virtualized server resources to users on a shared physical server. Users receive dedicated server space and resources, giving them greater control than a shared hosting plan.

Kamatera’s virtual private cloud (VPC) is an isolated, secure, and highly flexible private cloud environment. You can create a VPC almost instantly and build exclusive cloud infrastructure for your business.

Kamatera’s VPC is best suited to organizations with high-security needs, as it offers reliability and resiliency, increased data privacy, and energy efficiency. Simply select your server type and resources and sign up for the service.

ScalaHosting has datacenters in the US and Europe and is a quick and economical web hosting provider. It leverages exceptional cloud infrastructure to offer leading performance and security. ScalaHosting’s managed cloud VPS plans offer effortless flexibility. The Build 1 plan offers all the features you need to manage website hosting with ease.

ScalaHosting also provides an option to build a custom cloud VPS and offers better speed and performance-oriented features than most VPS hosting providers. ScalaHosting should be among your top picks for VPS hosting if you are looking for faster website load time.

A2 Hosting offers fast and affordable, managed and unmanaged VPS plans. Managed VPS hosting is a better option for beginners. But if you are a seasoned pro and want full root access, A2 Hosting’s unmanaged VPS plans are worth considering. The Runway 1 plan is a good starting point.

A2 Hosting offers three (fairly expensive) SUPERSONIC plans that leverage Turbo Servers and include NMVe SSDs. These plans are up to 20 times faster than the Runway 1 plan.

InMotion Hosting’s VPS hosting plans are a fascinating option for budding businesses and developers that prioritize reliability and performance. That said, these plans can be expensive. The VPS 4GB RAM plan is the most reasonable of the plans for personal use or small business needs.

Fully managed website transfers and a 99.99% uptime guarantee are added bonuses. The more expensive plans include NVMe SSDs and unlimited bandwidth. If you have few budget constraints, check them out.

Dedicated hosting involves leasing an entire server to a client and giving them complete control, including choice of software, hardware, operating system (OS), and setup. It is the most flexible, secure, and expensive hosting type.

IONOS’s dedicated server hosting plans are among the best on the market, offering efficient performance through innovation. Enjoy the benefits of dedicated enterprise hardware and leading security technologies. IONOS offers three server options: AMD servers, Intel servers, and storage servers. For your convenience, we detail the Intel server option.

Other worthwhile features include unlimited traffic, optional shared storage, a reset option, strong security provisions, and a host of email capabilities. If you want multiple processing cores, IONOS also offers AMD servers.

InMotion Hosting’s fully managed and affordable dedicated servers are powered by cPanel. The web host offers four dedicated hosting plans, and all are super fast. We recommend the Aspire plan for SMBs and mid-sized organizations.

It should be noted that InMotion Hosting’s bare metal hosting plans are cheaper than its plans managed with cPanel. Bare metal plans do not include cPanel licenses.

InterServer is a premium web host with two datacenters in the US. The web host is a good option for experienced developers looking for a feature-packed dedicated server hosting plan. InterServer offers ultra-fast website speeds, and its network is route-optimized. That means its servers are never overloaded.

InterServer also offers three control panel options: cPanel, Plesk, and DirectAdmin. You can contact the InterServer sales department if you want a custom dedicated server solution, with provisions for SAN/NAS, hardware firewalls, and load balancing available.

If you want to publish a website online, you need a web hosting plan. Think of your website as a house. Your website’s address (the protocol and domain name) is akin to a house address. The land upon which you build that house is made available by a web host.

A web host makes your website’s content accessible on the web by renting out physical server space to store the website’s data. It also provides the technologies and resources necessary for quick, secure, and dependable website operation. While you build a website, you need a web host to bring it to an online audience.

You have a variety of hosting types at your fingertips. For example, if you want to build a WordPress website, we recommend buying a managed WordPress hosting plan from Bluehost. It is the best web hosting service for WordPress (and a WordPress partner) and also the fastest WordPress hosting provider.

Some other popular web hosting types include shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated server hosting, and cloud hosting.

Fast web hosts use premium, well-maintained servers with powerful hardware components, including SSDs, ample RAM, and powerful processors for fast data access. A fast web hosting company offers rapid server response time, a minimum uptime guarantee of 99.9%, a CDN integration, a variety of caching techniques, and static file and image optimization techniques.

The proximity of the web hosting server, for example, plays an important role in website speed. If a great distance exists between the server and your location, data takes longer to travel. That increases latency and decreases the speed of your website.

Another factor is uptime, which determines the reliability of a web server. This metric expresses the amount of time a server is online. The industry-standard uptime for a web server is 99.9%. Ideally, the closer this figure is to 100%, the better. If your web server is offline for even a few minutes, it could be disastrous, as customers cannot access your website. First impressions online, especially negative ones, may be everlasting.

Simply put, a bad web host can lead to a slow website. A good web host provides many provisions to speed up your website. Let’s explore how a CDN, caching mechanisms, and image and static file optimization can speed up a website. A CDN improves website performance by caching content at the network edge.

Some web hosting plans include CDN integrations such as Cloudflare, while others offer custom CDNs. The best web hosting services provide pre-configured website caching mechanisms. Website caching is a procedure that stores a copy of static file content in a cache for quicker access and is implemented on both the client side and server side.

Large, unoptimized mages are one of the biggest culprits of slow websites. A web host that offers image optimization techniques significantly speeds up a website. That means the web host plays a crucial role in determining a website’s speed.

You must use the 30- to 45-day trial period (or possibly more) that most web hosts effectively. In addition to testing all important hosting features, you should perform benchmark tests, including one to determine the hosting server’s speed. Users feel most at home when a webpage loads in one second or less. Anything around this mark (one to two seconds) is a good speed for a hosting server.

Thankfully, several third-party tools are available for website speed testing, and we recommend Pingdom. The results appear on your screen shortly after you run a website speed test. The ones that truly matter are time-to-first-byte (TTFB) and network latency. TTFB shows the responsiveness of your hosting server. Essentially, it is the amount of time it takes for the first bytes of data to appear on a client’s browser upon initiating a request.

You should also factor in other performance optimization tips. For example, some website speed testing tools break down the distribution of webpage components, showing you how long each takes to load. If one or more components clog up the website loading process, you can address them.

You should select a server type according to your website requirements. The larger your website, the more resources you need. Shared hosting plans, for example, share server resources with other websites and could be a solid option for people with few website needs.

While shared hosting servers are cheap and reliable, both VPS hosting and dedicated hosting servers are faster and more dependable. VPS hosting and dedicated hosting plans are better suited to those with medium to large website needs. A VPS hosting plan offers better overall uptime and cybersecurity than a shared plan.

A dedicated hosting plan is the cream of the crop for website speed. Cloud hosting is another speedy hosting type, providing solid uptime, dependability, and flexibility. It is more expensive than shared hosting but cheaper than VPS hosting and dedicated server hosting.

Every second counts when it comes to website load time. On average, a webpage takes 2.5 seconds to load on a desktop and 8.6 seconds to load on a smartphone. Your website should load faster than those averages on both device types. The longer your website takes to load, the higher the bounce rate you will experience.

A high bounce rate is an indication to search engines that users do not value your website’s content. Your Google Search ranking will fall considerably in that case. We recommend purchasing a fast web hosting plan to avoid that scenario. A fast web host will provide all the resources necessary to secure a desktop website load time of less than two seconds.

It will also provide mobile browsing optimization provisions. For example, A2 Hosting, IONOS, and Bluehost offer desktop website load times of less than 1.5 seconds. A one-second delay in website load time can reduce conversions significantly, so do not take it lightly.

For starters, you should purchase a performance-optimized web hosting plan. The web host plays an instrumental role in your website’s performance and management. If you already have a hosting plan, check your website’s speed by using a tool like Pingdom, GTmetrix, or Google PageSpeed Insights.

Analyze the test results and implement the list of suggestions to improve your website’s speed. For example, you may learn that one or more website elements are hindering speed. In that case, you should take all necessary action to restore normality.

If you follow these suggestions and tips, your website will function quickly in no time.

A2 Hosting is hands down the fastest web host. With a webpage loading speed of just 0.295 seconds, it is hard to top. The hosting provider achieves that feat through its stellar, optimized software and hardware resources. IONOS is another solid option with a website load time of just 1.23 seconds. It offers the perfect combination of speed and value.

InMotion Hosting, Hostinger, Cloudways, and ScalaHosting are fast in their own rights, and they are also among the best web hosting companies for speed. No matter your business type or size, a swift website is a necessity. And it is impossible to have a fast website without a fast web host.

Quick hosting enhances the user experience, improves search engine rankings, reduces downtime, ensures reliability, and enhances security. So, select the right hosting type according to your requirements and purchase a robust hosting plan as soon as possible.