Everybody loves visiting a quick web site! Having a quick website additionally helps enhance your search engine rankings, crawlability, conversion charges, and time spent on the web page. Moreover, it additionally decreases your bounce price.
At Kinsta, we’re obsessed with speed! Unsurprisingly, many web site house owners and net businesses improve their web sites by migrating to Kinsta.
Should you’re nonetheless on the fence, you may wonder if there are vital enhancements in web site pace after migrating to Kinsta. With this intensive migration knowledge mission, we got down to check precisely that.
This mission covers 32,000+ knowledge factors from 3,200+ web sites we migrated to Kinsta from greater than 23 hosts — we did the assessments over three months.
We ran an internet site pace check for every area migrated — earlier than and after migrating. After which we bought all the way down to crunching the numbers. This submit will cowl all of the check methodology and ends in element.
Excited? Let’s begin!
The Web site Velocity Testing Methodology
Earlier than we get began with the outcomes, we should notice down our web site pace testing methodology. We’ll element it beneath:
The Website Velocity Testing Platform
For our assessments, we used WebPageTest, an open-source mission that permits us to run a free web site check from a number of world areas utilizing real browsers.
Although WebPageTest is as easy to make use of as some other website speed testing tool, its options for superior customers are top-notch, permitting you to seize many in-depth metrics and examine them throughout a number of assessments.
For example, you possibly can set the variety of assessments within the Check Settings. Enabling this feature repeats the assessments from scratch with the identical parameters.
The default variety of assessments WebPageTest performs is three, however you possibly can set it as much as 9 for intense repeated assessments. We set this quantity to 3 to reach at dependable outcomes and let WebPageTest select the median end result.
WebPageTest additionally permits you to log First View and Repeat View metrics individually. Should you allow the Repeat View possibility, every check hundreds the web page with no browser cache (First View) after which hundreds it once more with the saved cache (Repeat View).
A pace check’s First View and Repeat View metrics offer you a greater perspective of how the web page hundreds for brand spanking new and returning customers.
Lastly, WebPageTest gives API entry for automating assessments, and a built-in assessments comparability software. Each these options are simply good for our use case.
How We Ran the Assessments
As soon as we’ve set a typical testing process — location, browser, connection, variety of assessments, Repeat View — operating the assessments is a breeze with WebPageTest’s automation instruments.
All we’d like now are precise web sites emigrate and check.
Fortunately, we now have a relentless inflow of purchasers migrating to Kinsta from various internet hosting suppliers — from cheap shared hosting plans to expensive self-managed cloud servers.
Our top-notch migrations team labored carefully with the web site pace testing workforce to get the outcomes with out hiccups.
We carried out one check simply earlier than migrating the positioning, and the following check instantly after ending the migration. As detailed earlier than, we set the variety of assessments to three to reach at dependable metrics by letting WebPageTest select the median end result.
All in all, we migrated and examined 3,200+ web sites over three months. That’s 2+ migrations accomplished every hour of each workday!
The Related Velocity Check Metrics
WebPageTest logs a number of metrics for every check. For evaluating a migrating web site’s relative efficiency, we thought of these 4 metrics essentially the most related:
1. Time to First Byte (TTFB)
This metric measures the time between the preliminary request and the primary byte of the response. TTFB precedes all the opposite metrics and is primarily dictated by the server’s response time.
Minimizing TTFB begins by selecting a quick internet hosting supplier with excessive uptime and responsiveness. Combining it with a CDN also can enhance it additional.
2. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
This metric measures the time to load the most important picture or block of textual content within the browser viewport (above the fold). Normally, these things can be a hero picture, banner, heading, or giant textual content block.
A decrease LCP score signifies a greater consumer expertise. As such, it’s additionally one in every of Google’s Core Web Vitals metrics. Any web page with a superb LCP rating can rank larger in search outcomes. If these pages match the right standards, they may also be featured in Google’s different providers (e.g. Google Information).
When evaluating check outcomes, we advocate you give most weightage to the LCP metric.
3. Whole Blocking Time (TBT)
We can’t observe a web page’s First Input Delay (FID) — one other Core Net Vitals metric — by lab-measurable pace testing instruments like WebPageTest. That’s as a result of FID can solely be evaluated within the subject — measuring it requires an actual consumer interacting with the web page.
Nonetheless, we are able to measure a web page’s TBT by pace testing instruments like WebPageTest. As per Google, TBT correlates properly with FID within the subject. It additionally captures interactivity points.
Bettering TBT primarily entails optimizing the web site code — third-party code, JavaScript execution time, important thread work, variety of HTTP requests, and switch sizes. These duties are development-oriented and don’t come underneath the scope of a internet hosting supplier’s main providers.
Usually, web page pace optimizations to enhance TBT must also enhance FID to your customers.
4. Totally Loaded Time (FLT)
This metric measures the time to load all of the web page’s belongings — textual content, photos, movies, CSS stylesheets, JS scripts, third-party resources, embeds, and many others.
We’re higher off with simply the LCP metric from a user-experience standpoint. Nonetheless, because the migrated web site stays just about equivalent between the assessments, measuring FLT significantly signifies how properly the brand new internet hosting server performs in comparison with the outdated one.
You need to notice {that a} server isn’t just its {hardware}. It additionally consists of varied optimizations — server-level caching, platform-specific optimizations, database optimizations, built-in security measures, CDN integration, and many others.
Evaluating the Check Outcomes
Our aim for this mission was to see how Kinsta compares to different internet hosting suppliers — it serves as a data-backed comparability piece for our potential, new, and outdated purchasers.
We additionally wished to know how a lot of a distinction we’re making — optimistic or adverse. If the distinction we’re making is optimistic, it’s nice. We’ll know the place we are able to enhance additional if it’s adverse.
A few of the hosts we migrated websites from had solely a handful of domains taking part — a couple of even had only one area migrated. These hosts didn’t have many knowledge factors to derive dependable metrics. Therefore, we excluded any host with fewer than ten domains analyzed — that’s greater than a dozen internet hosting suppliers. We might contemplate including these hosts sooner or later as extra websites migrate to Kinsta from them.
Let’s transfer on to the check outcomes now.
Kinsta vs Alternate options: The Check Outcomes
How does Kinsta stack up in opposition to the competitors? It’s time to search out out.
Except talked about in any other case, all of the metrics are listed in seconds (sec). As these metrics measure web site pace and interactivity, slower instances are higher. Therefore, you’ll see a adverse image previous the distinction quantity (Δ) if there’s any enchancment.
Right here’s what the columns imply:
- Unique = Pre-migration check outcomes
- Kinsta = Submit-migration check outcomes
- Δ = Distinction between the Unique and Kinsta metrics
- %Δ = Share distinction between the Unique and Kinsta metrics
We’ll spotlight post-migration metric enhancements in Kinsta purple color to make it simple so that you can spot the variations.
You’ll discover that the majority metrics are painted purple. Briefly, you’ll profit considerably from migrating your website to Kinsta.
Kinsta vs BlueHost
| Kinsta vs Bluehost | ||||||||
| Metric | First View | Repeat View | ||||||
| Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | |
| TTFB (sec) | 2.75 | 0.55 | -2.19 | -79.82% | 1.24 | 0.34 | -0.90 | -72.88% |
| LCP (sec) | 4.17 | 2.20 | -1.97 | -47.20% | 1.88 | 1.15 | -0.73 | -38.68% |
| TBT (sec) | 0.18 | 0.29 | 0.11 | 60.66% | 0.11 | 0.13 | 0.02 | 22.48% |
| FLT (sec) | 6.15 | 3.22 | -2.93 | -47.67% | 3.47 | 1.27 | -2.20 | -63.40% |
Kinsta vs Dreamhost
| Kinsta vs DreamHost | ||||||||
| Metric | First View | Repeat View | ||||||
| Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | |
| TTFB (sec) | 0.92 | 0.73 | -0.18 | -19.94% | 0.30 | 0.30 | -0.01 | -2.21% |
| LCP (sec) | 2.52 | 2.35 | -0.17 | -6.57% | 1.43 | 1.28 | -0.16 | -11.01% |
| TBT (sec) | 0.29 | 0.15 | -0.14 | -48.82% | 0.20 | 0.07 | -0.13 | -65.60% |
| FLT (sec) | 6.65 | 4.90 | -1.75 | -26.36% | 3.89 | 3.35 | -0.55 | -14.00% |
Kinsta vs HostGator
| Kinsta vs HostGator | ||||||||
| Metric | First View | Repeat View | ||||||
| Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | |
| TTFB (sec) | 2.02 | 0.55 | -1.47 | -72.94% | 1.08 | 0.24 | -0.84 | -77.56% |
| LCP (sec) | 3.70 | 2.42 | -1.28 | -34.51% | 2.04 | 1.44 | -0.60 | -29.35% |
| TBT (sec) | 0.22 | 0.26 | 0.03 | 14.64% | 0.11 | 0.12 | 0.01 | 6.02% |
| FLT (sec) | 5.07 | 3.29 | -1.78 | -35.15% | 2.57 | 1.50 | -1.08 | -41.86% |
Kinsta vs Liquid Net
| Kinsta vs Liquid Web | ||||||||
| Metric | First View | Repeat View | ||||||
| Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | |
| TTFB (sec) | 1.13 | 0.55 | -0.58 | -51.28% | 0.92 | 0.39 | -0.53 | -57.65% |
| LCP (sec) | 2.80 | 2.16 | -0.64 | -22.83% | 1.75 | 1.19 | -0.57 | -32.24% |
| TBT (sec) | 0.26 | 0.27 | 0.01 | 3.46% | 0.19 | 0.22 | 0.04 | 20.14% |
| FLT (sec) | 4.45 | 3.66 | -0.79 | -17.71% | 2.83 | 1.83 | -1.00 | -35.21% |
Kinsta vs Amazon AWS
| Kinsta vs Amazon AWS | ||||||||
| Metric | First View | Repeat View | ||||||
| Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | |
| TTFB (sec) | 1.22 | 0.96 | -0.27 | -21.88% | 1.16 | 0.51 | -0.64 | -55.69% |
| LCP (sec) | 3.05 | 3.29 | 0.24 | 7.71% | 2.09 | 1.55 | -0.54 | -25.75% |
| TBT (sec) | 0.30 | 0.33 | 0.03 | 10.05% | 0.24 | 0.17 | -0.07 | -28.73% |
| FLT (sec) | 4.17 | 4.46 | 0.29 | 7.00% | 2.82 | 1.91 | -0.90 | -32.08% |
Kinsta vs Cloudways
| Kinsta vs Cloudways | ||||||||
| Metric | First View | Repeat View | ||||||
| Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | |
| TTFB (sec) | 0.71 | 0.63 | -0.08 | -11.47% | 0.44 | 0.38 | -0.07 | -15.12% |
| LCP (sec) | 2.43 | 2.47 | 0.04 | 1.71% | 1.26 | 1.23 | -0.03 | -2.26% |
| TBT (sec) | 0.44 | 0.50 | 0.05 | 11.93% | 0.27 | 0.22 | -0.05 | -18.52% |
| FLT (sec) | 4.79 | 5.15 | 0.35 | 7.36% | 1.37 | 1.64 | 0.27 | 19.68% |
Kinsta vs Digital Ocean
| Kinsta vs Digital Ocean | ||||||||
| Metric | First View | Repeat View | ||||||
| Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | |
| TTFB (sec) | 0.93 | 0.54 | -0.39 | -42.45% | 0.75 | 0.19 | -0.56 | -74.84% |
| LCP (sec) | 3.26 | 4.21 | 0.95 | 29.25% | 2.37 | 1.75 | -0.62 | -26.15% |
| TBT (sec) | 0.39 | 0.40 | 0.01 | 3.33% | 0.42 | 0.39 | -0.03 | -7.03% |
| FLT (sec) | 5.12 | 5.38 | 0.26 | 5.12% | 4.37 | 1.94 | -2.42 | -55.46% |
Kinsta vs SiteGround
| Kinsta vs SiteGround | ||||||||
| Metric | First View | Repeat View | ||||||
| Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | |
| TTFB (sec) | 0.62 | 0.88 | 0.27 | 43.41% | 0.62 | 0.40 | -0.23 | -36.46% |
| LCP (sec) | 2.21 | 2.75 | 0.53 | 24.01% | 1.44 | 1.25 | -0.19 | -13.09% |
| TBT (sec) | 0.19 | 0.26 | 0.07 | 36.74% | 0.11 | 0.13 | 0.02 | 17.46% |
| FLT (sec) | 3.16 | 3.49 | 0.33 | 10.56% | 1.89 | 1.70 | -0.19 | -10.11% |
Kinsta vs Different
The “Different” internet hosting supplier class consists of area of interest hosts that aren’t our vital opponents.
| Kinsta vs Different | ||||||||
| Metric | First View | Repeat View | ||||||
| Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | Unique | Kinsta | Δ | %Δ | |
| TTFB (sec) | 1.40 | 0.91 | -0.49 | -35.05% | 1.03 | 0.46 | -0.57 | -55.75% |
| LCP (sec) | 3.33 | 3.16 | -0.17 | -5.15% | 1.94 | 1.45 | -0.49 | -25.11% |
| TBT (sec) | 0.31 | 0.36 | 0.05 | 15.80% | 0.21 | 0.21 | 0.00 | 0.86% |
| FLT (sec) | 4.99 | 4.75 | -0.23 | -4.71% | 2.89 | 2.33 | -0.56 | -19.34% |
Key Takeaways from the Outcomes
You’ll discover that we faltered in a number of the First View outcomes’ metrics, however we carried out exceedingly properly within the Repeat View outcomes. That speaks volumes about our server-level caching resolution and CDN integration.
Our TTFB sport is spot on in all the outcomes — the one exception is the First View outcomes in opposition to SiteGround. We do beat them convincingly within the Repeat View outcomes.
LCP is essentially the most related user-centric metric for bettering an internet site’s perceived efficiency. Once more, we carry out beautifully right here in many of the outcomes — particularly Repeat View outcomes. Going by LCP stats, on common, shopper websites expertise 20% sooner load instances by migrating to Kinsta.
We received’t talk about the TBT ends in element as they rely extra on the web site code than the internet hosting supplier. Nonetheless, peeking into TBT scores might present website optimization opportunities for our newly migrated purchasers to hurry up their websites additional.
Lastly, there’s the FLT metric. General, we topped the FLT metric’s Repeat View outcomes by a big margin, and in its First View outcomes, we beat or virtually matched our opponents — the one exception was Cloudways.
Right here’s how briskly your website can run (and the way sluggish the competitors is):
- From BlueHost to Kinsta: +39% improved web page load instances (avg.)
- From Amazon AWS to Kinsta: +26% improved web page load instances avg.)
- From Digital Ocean to Kinsta: +26% improved web page load instances (avg.)
- From Liquid Net to Kinsta: +32% improved web page load instances (avg.)
- From Cloudways to Kinsta: +2% improved web page load instances (avg.)
- From HostGator to Kinsta: +29% improved web page load instances (avg.)
- From Dreamhost to Kinsta: +11% improved web page load instances (avg.)
- From SiteGround to Kinsta: +13% improved web page load instances (avg.)
- From Different to Kinsta: +25% improved web page load instances (avg.)
How is that this doable? That’s as a result of all of Kinsta’s prospects get pleasure from:
We’re happy with the outcomes right here. However we all know we nonetheless have room for enchancment!
Our obsession with web site pace compels us to work tirelessly to launch new features commonly. Go to our Feature Updates web page for an up-to-date listing of all our newest instruments and upgrades.
Abstract
There are lots of good WordPress hosts, however we’ve got down to make Kinsta’s managed internet hosting resolution the best choice to your website. Most of the world’s biggest brands and web agencies depend on Kinsta to supercharge their web sites.
With rigorous testing over three months, we’ve demonstrated why migrating to Kinsta may give your website a free efficiency enhance.
Whereas bettering website pace is an important standards to look out for when migrating to a brand new host, you must also contemplate different important elements. For instance, we provide many extra useful options to all our purchasers:
- Free Kinsta CDN, automated Cloudflare wildcard SSLs, free premium DNS powered by Amazon Route53, staging environments, and automatic daily backups (with the choice to create handbook backups anytime).
- Full page caching on the server stage delivers content material instantaneously to guests. We pair that with our in-house Kinsta MU plugin to supply granular management over caching.
- Help for the newest PHP variations
- Free hack fixes for all web sites hosted with us. In case your WordPress site is hacked, we’ll repair it with fast precedence.
- Server-level rules and optimizations for WooCommerce and Simple Digital Downloads to make sure a smoother checkout expertise.
- MyKinsta — our custom-designed dashboard — that can assist you handle and enhance your website shortly. Launch a free live demo of our MyKinsta dashboard and take it for a spin.
- MyKinsta analytics reports for knowledge evaluation and efficiency insights.
- Multi-user access with fine-grained permissions. Add any variety of customers to your workforce. Give them entry to all of your websites, simply billing, or add them as builders or directors to a subset of your websites.
- Free Kinsta APM tool for debugging efficiency points in your website.
- SSH access, Git, and WP-CLI assist.
- Full integration with DevKinsta, our native improvement software. You may clone your stay or staging websites to a neighborhood surroundings, make any adjustments, and shortly push the updates to your stay or staging Kinsta website.
Kinsta presents free unlimited migrations on all its plans. Merely join one in every of our plans to get began. Check the service and the pace risk-free, and we offer a 30-day money-back assure. You solely lose for those who don’t give us a strive!
Save time, prices and maximize website efficiency with:
- On the spot assist from WordPress internet hosting consultants, 24/7.
- Cloudflare Enterprise integration.
- International viewers attain with 35 knowledge facilities worldwide.
- Optimization with our built-in Utility Efficiency Monitoring.
All of that and rather more, in a single plan with no long-term contracts, assisted migrations, and a 30-day-money-back-guarantee. Check out our plans or talk to sales to search out the plan that’s best for you.
