How to compare the speed of 2 different shared hosting plans?

[Marc van Leeuwen]

I would like to buy 2 shared hosting plans for a few new sites and they come from 2 different servers. I don't know which one will give me better speed. Which factors should I consider when buying a shared hosting plan and how to compare the speed between them?

 

[Rob Whisonant]

One thing you need to keep in mind. Shared servers speed changes constantly depending on how many visitors and processes are running on ALL of the shared accounts on the server. Sometimes they can be running fast and other times running very slowly. Even different shared servers at a host can run at different speeds depending on who is hosted on the server.

If at all possible, go with a small VPS account and just scale it as your needs grow.

 

[Hostens]

You can ask from future provider to give you a link or URL, where you could test the shared hosting server's overall speed. It should be really good and you should expect to have a little slower speed when your website will be uploaded into the package. This is because it will take more time to load fully functioning website. You should also consider asking if there are any PHP limits set on the package.

I agree that the difference in load time can vary in different shared hosting servers. However, if you notice it before the provider, it should be pointed out and you can always ask for migration to the more free server.

 

[buzybee-kevin]

Network speed is not everything most shared hosting accounts network speed is not the bottle neck as most might think. Your website speed mainly dependent upon available CPU, RAM and IOPS that are allocated to each shared hosting account. Also your sites use of content compression and is the host web server offering such support to your account. Your website is not going to automatically take advantage of these resources unless you configure it correctly. You can ask a future hosts what is allocated to the particular account you are interested in. The more CPU,RAM and IOPS allocated is important to the speed of your website especially if it is a database driven site like Wordpress or Joomla. These CMS systems consume much more resources on a shared hosting account than any other system.

PHP limits if set to low will cause errors especially in WP, not really going to effect performance unless its set ridiculously low but you will see PHP fatal errors in your logs. PHP memory limit is for each PHP process not for the entire website.

The load of a shared hosting server if overloaded will effect your sites speed at peak times. What this means is that the host is not managing their environments well enough and these hosts should be avoided. But this is not the normal situation. If managed properly the load of anther account should not effect yours. The resources allocated to your account should be guaranteed. Looks for host that offer CLoudlinux. CloudLinx is really good at separating resources and not allowing a renegade account effect yours even if the server is overloaded. Good luck

 

[timothykiko]

timothykiko

I don't think CLoudlinux helps more for shared hosting because I bought 2 different shared hosting from 2 different hosting companies for 4 weeks and one used CloudLinx but it was more slower than one that not use CLoudlinux. I think it depends on the quality of servers (specs) that created shared hosting accounts.

 

[buzybee-kevin]

buzybee-kevin

This all falls around how your CloudLinux environment is managed. The problems is that some lower end hosts do not know how to configure a CloudLinux environment to allow an account to function well. The reason why your CloudLinux account was slower than the one without is because the host was stingy with the resources allocated to your account. What this did is it boxed your website in and did not allow it to function as it wanted to. Most likely your using a CMS system like Wordpress where it needs a significant amount of IOPS and RAM. Now the other shared hosting environment was under sold and this allowed your site to consume what it needed to function well. The problem your going to run into is that when this server gets busier you will see your site slow down significantly and frustrate you. This will happen because your account does not have resources allocated to it and every account on that server will be fighting for resources. But with a Cloudlinux server it will be the same speed all the time. You just need to find a host that offers enough resources for it to run fast enough make you happy.

The problem these days with CMS system like WordPress is that customers want the cheapest hosting account they can find but want a fast website and lots of resources to run it. It could be that you may need to upgrade your account to an account that offers more CPU, RAM and IOPS. That is why you are seeing alot of host that offer Wordpress hosting.