Category: WordPress hosting

My favorite commands for cleaning up autoloaded data from your wp_options table. Why should you remove autoloaded data? It’s because this type of data is loaded on every page load and often contains data that is no longer used (left behind by already deleted themes/plugins) or left behind because WP-cron wasn’t working and some plugins… Read more Clean up wp_options table (autoloaded data)

Generally-speaking, Linode is better than Vultr. And Vultr is better than Digital Ocean. I’ve used Linode in 3 continents over 10 years. Used Vultr in 2 continents for only a few years. I haven’t done exact fair-comparison testing but through just firing up servers for clients using the same stack and “feeling it” (however you… Read more VPS REVIEW – Digital Ocean vs Linode vs Vultr

What is critical CSS? How does it work and when should you use it? Even better…when should critical CSS not be used? Here goes another cut-the-crap WordPress performance guide by yours truly.

A2 and SG are comparable, more or less. Generally, SG a little stronger but then has annoying CPU usage issues. A2 got better pricing. I used to prefer SG but now probably prefer A2 out of the two. If you want a better deal, just go with WebHostFace.

Yes, it sucks. I can’t believe they get away with selling it as a “premium” service. It’s the same crappy GoDaddy shared hosting service with a cleaner/simpler UI and more expensive resource limits (imitating higher-end hosting services). Don’t believe me? Let’s go over the issues…

Cloudflare’s Argo feature claims: Speed up average network latency by 35%. Decrease connection errors by 27%. Let’s see how much of a difference that even makes!

What’s a content delivery network and why do you need (or don’t need) it? I’ll cover the basics of what it is, how it’s used, and how it may benefit or impede your website. I also explain the difference of traditional CDN’s which were made for speed and the confusing Cloudflare service which is a… Read more What’s a CDN? (Content Delivery Network) And do you need it?

I’ll give a quick rundown on these 2 managed panel hosting services and how they compare for developer-grade clients. Speed, features, pricing, ease-of-use. What I like and dislike about both. We’ll go over all that.

Don’t waste your time. I thought they might be interesting considering all the expert advice they give on forums and marketing hype they have on their website. Slow to answer a sales email – seriously? I guess they don’t want my money. Bad reviews – read online and you’ll see plenty of complaints. Slow service… Read more UNIXy Varnish review for NGINX or LiteSpeed Web Servers

Should you have GZIP compression enabled? What does it do? Why is it recommended? And are there any drawbacks? GZIP is magical for me. You should definitely enable it if you want faster page loads. It’s a no-brainer and easy to enable. (I also go over the wrong way to do it!)

Simple tip for anybody still running Apache servers…switch to MPM Event! What is MPM Event and how does it improve your server performance without any drawbacks? I switched to MPM Event, I loved it. And you should do it too! We’ll cover some minor basics of MPM’s and why MPM Event is the best.

Converting to HTTPS/SSL is one of the scariest tasks out there. It feels like SUCH a big project with a billion little details. Feels like you need to hire a programmer or server expert or someone to make all the edits on your website, webserver, and Google accounts. Here are some simple steps to manually… Read more How to Move Your WordPress Site from HTTP to HTTPS

Running Apache behind an NGINX proxy was a good idea like in 2012. …but not anymore. I think we can just pick one and move on. Back in the days, Apache was faster at handling dynamic content (and also had htaccess compatibility) and NGINX (paired with Varnish) was way faster at handling static content. It… Read more Apache vs NGINX Comparison – use either but NOT BOTH!

About 98% of the shared hosting services out there suck! The bigger and more well-known the company, the more likely it is to suck. It’s slow, it’s insecure, it’s missing features you need, the tech support doesn’t understand your problem (or even your English), or the server keeps going down. Why is shared webhosting always… Read more Why Shared Hosting Sucks

Can you really trust a small webhost to have better PERFORMANCE, RELIABILITY, SUPPORT, and SECURITY…compared to the big webhosting companies? I think many people (more now than ever) are getting fed up with their current webhosting situation. The days are almost over when all the shared hosting giants like GoDaddy, BlueHost, 1and1, DreamHost, HostGator could… Read more Should You Trust a Small Webhosting Company?

LiteSpeed Cache BEATS Varnish…EASILY! I am by no means an “expert” sys admin or dev ops but after dealing with both for low-load and high-load servers, I will say LiteSpeed cache feels better. Here’s why…

I think the problem with inmotion is they use really outdated servers and also overcrowded. Even their VPS is running php 5.x, and when my friend complained, support told him it was his site and not the server. So he was paying $80/month for really bad server and also no support. Since he moved servers,… Read more InMotion VPS Hosting Review (HINT: they’re really bad)

Stay away! I had a big client migrated away from them. He had 3 servers: $250 (8vCPU/32GB) $150 (4vCPU/16GB) $150 (4vCPU/16GB) TERRIBLE HARDWARE Really slow servers. All of them were really awful. All of them were slow clock speeds and hidden CPU name in cPanel so you couldn’t see what they were running. I’ve seen… Read more BeyondHosting Review – REALLY BAD MANAGED VPS

What’s the difference between CLOUD vs VPS vs MANAGED hosting? Yes, it’s confusing as hell! Many different services seem to use the words CLOUD, VPS, and MANAGED all interchangeably…and most people don’t know what they mean. I’ll break down their technical differences and explain how they affect your webhosting performance and pricing.

After moving nearly a dozen WordPress speed-up clients away from “managed VPS” hosting services this past month, I’ve decided it’s time to state loud and clear: MANAGED VPS sucks! It’s slow as hell and way over-priced! And don’t think I’ve haven’t tried them all! A2 MANAGED VPS sucks. ($80-160/month) InMotion MANAGED VPS sucks. ($80/month) LiquidWeb MANAGED… Read more Why are MANAGED VPS Servers so Slow?

Yes, you should definitely use object caching for your webserver…especially for dynamic page generation. It speeds things up incredibly and can do wonders for page speed performance.

CDN’s are becoming all the rage nowadays ever since CloudFlare offered their free plan. But now, there are all kinds of micro-CDN’s popping up everywhere. Each with a different set of pricing and services. I won’t go over the differences…all I care about is speed, reliability (HIT frequency), coverage, and ease-of-use. Here’s a list of… Read more Best CDN Providers for WordPress – Speed Review 2018

WordPress security is becoming a much bigger issue nowadays because of its popularity. So many sites are using WordPress, with many developers building apps, themes, and extensions for it. But unfortunately this also makes it a common target for hackers. But on the flip side, there are tons of documentation and support for WordPress and… Read more EASY WordPress Security Tips WITHOUT Slowing Performance

My honest thoughts on Cloudways managed hosting services! Cloudways is a premium alternative to traditional VPS or cloud hosting providers and I would say competes directly with Runcloud and Serverpilot. They’re a new-ish hosting company getting popular very quickly by both technical as well as non-technical users. Beautiful service, easy to use, with great support… Read more Cloudways Managed Hosting Review (2018)

I’ve given examples for both “www” and also “without www”. I gave neutral code that works with any site. If you want, you could also replace “%{HTTP_HOST}%” with your domain name. I only have rewrites for Apache HTaccess right now. Add this code above the #BEGIN WordPress line in your htaccess. 

Load Google Analytics faster on WordPress! If you’ve ever been addicted to speed-testing your site on Pingdom/GTmetrix, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. That GA JS request lags your site costing you an extra 100ms-2seconds of load time. Below are my favorite methods to prevent the Google Analytics JS from slowing down your… Read more Fastest ways to load Google Analytics JS on WordPress

All the WordPress webhosting companies I’ve personally tried or heard about from people I trust! My compared criteria are: SPEED, reliability (up-time), FEATURES (easy to make changes, add SSL?), and PRICING (not crazy expensive). Customer service is not as important for me since I can do 99% of things myself. I’ve tested a handful of… Read more Best WordPress Hosting Reviews (UPDATED 2018)

Shared hosting is back! I bought into SiteGround as a total skeptic. I weaned myself off of shared hosting 8 years ago. But I came back because I heard great things and figured it was a lot easier to have a nice $12/month shared hosting plan with cPanel, staging, SSL, and all the little goodies… Read more SiteGround Webhosting Review – UPDATED 2018

What managed VPS does is give you a pre-tuned hosting environment that fits most sites out there (with varying levels of aggressive caching enabled). If you’re coming from shared hosting, any VPS will be a noticeable performance gain to you. But where managed VPS can be a turn-off is the price. You might pay upwards of… Read more Managed VPS vs Unmanaged VPS

Honest SiteGround review after having tried several VPS hosts as well as dozens of regular shared hosting companies. In about 2010, I moved to VPS and never looked back since I run a dozen serious websites with thousands of hits/day. I was very happy with Linode and never thought to go back to shared hosting. Why… Read more SiteGround WebHosting Review – UPDATED 2017

I’m incredibly happy with Linode VPS Hosting for the past 5 years. I honestly don’t even like telling people about them because I don’t want this company to grow, get bought out, or decrease their quality of service like GoDaddy or any of the EIG hosting companies. Linode has 0% downtime or constant upgrade/migration issues… Read more Linode – VPS Hosting Review – Updated 2017

This guide was intended to help beginner/non-experts find a good control panel for managing their websites and web servers. About myself…I’m extremely tech-savvy and know my way around many web technologies. Of the few things that I don’t do, programming and operating from the command line is one of them. When it comes to finding the… Read more FREE Web Hosting Control Panel Review

Here goes my bad review of VPS.net (owned by UK2 group). I use to be a shared hosting customer of ANhosting.com for several years — which I still am. They offered good service and good support which was far better than Dreamhost. ANhosting was my savior when one of my websites got popular and I… Read more VPS.net Hosting Sucks! – Bad Review

So I went around looking for places to buy cPanel licenses last night. I found different rates and different options: BuycPanel.com – popular cPanel reseller. Nice site filled with many options and allows you to pay for a monthly license (instead of paying the yearly price). They will even install cPanel on your server for… Read more Where to buy cPanel licenses