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Provider comparisons

Cloud hosting, compared two at a time

Each matchup uses the same benchmark framework as the main ranking table, so verdicts stay consistent across providers. Measured columns come straight from the shared dataset; everything else is argued in plain terms with the trade-offs named.

6 comparisons · 8 providers · reviewed August 2026

All comparisons

Choosing well

How to read any of these comparisons

The same four questions decide most hosting decisions. Work out which one applies to you before looking at a single millisecond.

If price is the constraint

Compare entry pricing against renewal pricing, not just the headline. SiteGround and Hostinger both advertise low introductory rates that step up substantially; Cloudways advertises the price you keep paying.

If your audience is international

Weight the Global TTFB column and check whether a CDN is bundled or sold separately. A provider with a slower server and an included CDN can deliver faster pages to a distant visitor than a faster server with no CDN.

If you manage sites for clients

Workflow beats milliseconds. Staging environments, transferable installs and team access save more hours per month than a 20ms TTFB difference ever will.

If traffic is spiky

Read the load column rather than the TTFB columns. A host that is fast when idle and inconsistent under concurrency is the wrong trade for a store on sale day.

Questions

About these comparisons

Which cloud hosting provider is fastest?

It depends which kind of fast you mean. Cloudways posts the fastest US origin TTFB at 118ms, meaning the server itself responds quickest. Kinsta posts the fastest global TTFB at 184ms, because it bundles an enterprise CDN. Neither answer is wrong — they measure different things.

How do you decide who wins a comparison?

The measured columns are computed directly from the same dataset that drives the ranking table, so they are not editorial. The judgement-based sections are argued in the text, and where a matchup is genuinely close we say so rather than manufacturing a winner.

Do affiliate relationships affect these comparisons?

No. The table is ordered by measured origin TTFB and the comparison verdicts follow the data. We currently have one affiliate partner, Cloudways, which is disclosed on every link and detailed in full on the disclosure page.

How current is this data?

Figures were last verified August 2026 against published third-party benchmarks from the 2024–2025 window. Original controlled testing is planned but not yet published, and this page will say so until that changes.